


Carry My Joy

by ithastoworkout



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate universe - Manchester, Anal Sex, Bad Decisions, Domestic Fluff, First Dates, Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg, New Year's house party, Smut, a bit of Christmas, also Nick is panicky 87 percent of the time, and has about five separate heart attacks thanks to Louis, idiots being idiots, no one is famous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-17 18:38:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16979721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithastoworkout/pseuds/ithastoworkout
Summary: Louis, Nick, a few too many drinks on New Year’s and a bundle of Joy nine months later.It’s a mix of Louis and Nick having a baby together and the baby’s first Christmas. Though I could’ve done one without the other, I decided not to. Just because.





	Carry My Joy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leighbot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leighbot/gifts).



> Leigh, this one is all for you. I tried to combine a few of the bits and pieces that you had in your prompts and well, I came up with this.  
> Anyway, this was a joy (pun intended) to write, even if it took me a bit longer than expected, but the mods were so very lovely and understanding about it all.  
> I seriously couldn't have done this and the fic wouldn't be what it is now without Tasha, my amazing amazing beta.  
> Title is from a Bjork song.  
> And as a side note. The bits from New Year's are marked with two /*/*/*/*/ symbols at the beginning and end. Just wanted to explicitly say it here to clear it up in advance. One symbols is just a regular old skip between scenes. Two symbols are a 'flash-back'.  
> So, here it is, hope you enjoy!

 

/*/*/*/*/

Nick is standing in front of a peach coloured house.

It’s quite quaint with its two windows on either sides of the front door, a pretty flower bush beneath both. It might just be a hydrangea, not that Nick knows much about what a hydrangea bush looks like. When it dawns on him to look down at his hands, he’s not bothered by the fact his fingers have been replaced by sausages which is weird in and of it, but he’s fine. Sausages. It’s okay.

It’s the house that’s bothering him, because he’s sure he’s supposed to know it or does know it or he does, actually, just not from where specifically. Nick just knows he’s been here before. He still can’t think of it when Homer Simpson pops up in front of one of those windows and waves at him, which again, weird. In the moment - the sausages for fingers, Homer Simpson waving at him moment - it feels imperative to Nick to go right up to the front door and not, what it might feel imperative for a saner more down to Earth person - wonder what in the bloody hell he’s doing in front of the Simpson’s house. _Is this what it feels like to be Harry?_

Nick tries the handle instead, but the door is somewhat unsurprisingly locked. Homer is still joyously waving at him even when he can clearly see Nick is having trouble getting in. The manners of that man… “Open the door,” Nick tries to enunciate at the stupid git. Nothing. And then, weirdly enough seeing as where he’s at and what he’s doing, right before his finger touches the buzzer, it goes all by itself. _Ring, ring._

Loud and shrill it sounds like it’s going right inside Nick’s head. _Ring. Ring._ The second round drags on a bit, really hammering in the bell, but no one’s answering.

With the last bit of patience, because Nick is angry and annoyed and fucking over this bell for reasons he doesn’t know - because what did the buzzer ever do to him, right? - Nick mutters, “What the actual fu-” right into the sticky wet patch he’s drooled all over his pillow.

“What the -” Nick looks around for burglars and flying ninjas that are clearly out to get him in the middle of the night, but it’s just him and his dogs, snoring at the foot of the bed. Sighing to himself in a way that’s meant to say, _you silly senile fucker_ , Nick lies back down and settles in - away from the pool of saliva. Just as he’s about to subtly laugh at his antics, his doorbell rings and Nick has a near heart attack.

“Shit. _Shit_.” Burglars don’t ring the front door, do they? It would be a bit stupid to announce a robbery before you’re even inside the building. It’s like they’d want to get invited in first. Like some kind of vampires. _Shit_. What if it’s a vampire who’s robbing him? Well, at least flying ninjas would just fly through the window or something, to catch him off guard, as flying ninjas tend to do to unsuspecting thirty-something year old _tired_ homeowners in the middle of the bloody night.

When his buzzer goes and he’s pretty such there’s a knock that follows, Nick gets his feet off the bed and glances at his alarm clock a bit pathetically, because it’s just past eleven and he’s been asleep for a good hour already. He’s _tired_ and now he is also going to be all weird and off in the morning, and everyone will notice and ask him what’s wrong, which will be a lovely thing to hear for four hours straight first thing in the morning. Nick is more than willing to blame his promising lack of spewing rainbows and glitter over the callers tomorrow on whoever the bloody living _Jesus_ \- his buzzer goes _again_ \- is standing in front of his door. He’s making small sacrifices and all that.

When Nick leans around the somewhat heavy vase he picked up in his hallway, because the weight of it makes him feel like he could do some damage if he throws it at the attacker sent to kill him on a randomly selected Tuesday night, he blinks a bleary eye through the very convenient and downright necessary peephole, he feels a little bit silly, extraordinarily confused, like he’s half dreaming still and less angry than he ought to be. The vase is quite a welcome security blanket, because as it turns out, Nick feels loads more comfortable having something heavy to put between himself and Louis Tomlinson, who for some reason or other, has been trying to ring Nick’s brain right out of his skull.

“ _What_ are you doing here? Do you know how late it is?” Nick starts to say as he’s opening the door, which again, a welcome distraction from gawking at the state of Louis’ atrociously inappropriate middle of February state of dress. Rolled up jeans and a jacket? With nothing but what looks like a nearly worn through t-shirt? It’s making Nick blush over his puff parka hanging on the hook right behind the door. Whatever, it’s Louis who looks stupid or, maybe not exactly stupid, because when he bites his lip around a smile and shrugs; Nick’s chest goes all fluttery and hot and embarrassingly red, right. In the effects of the buzzer, Nick’s managed to forget he’s been pining over Louis for the last three to twelve months, r _ight._

“Sorry? I forgot you, you know, have early mornings.”

Nick scoffs, because he flat out refuses to preen or fall down on his knees or something as equally humiliating. “It’s only been my job for nearly six years, but goes on. What’re you doing here?” Nick’s also pretending like he isn’t hoping he’ll hear that one specific thing that would, sooner or later, bring him down to his knees. But that’s sort of inevitable and to be expected when faced with a fit bloke, like Nick’s need to throw a blanket around Louis’ shoulders and calling him a daft knob. It isn’t even the ever heavier vase in Nick’s now slightly shaky arms that’s the weird bit. The weird bit is Louis standing in front of his door.

“I, um-” Louis takes a deep breath, as if whatever he wants to say is stuck in his throat like a stray piece of lint. And if it's making Louis nervous, it's definitely making Nick nervous. “Can I come in? Like, I won't take long, sorry, I'd just rather we sit down.”

“You want to…” Nick trails off. He puts the vase down in the corner next to the door and ushers Louis in with an unsteady, “Yeah, and come on, through there.” He doesn't know if Louis actually says ‘I know’ or if Nick just imagines it.

Without asking, Nick detours by the kitchen and grabs them each a glass of water on the way. Louis Tomlinson _smiles_ at him and says, “Thanks,” because hell has frozen over and pigs are flying and Nick's pretty sure he's just got an ulcer. There's a strong possibility Nick is still dreaming. Not like it would be the first time he dreamt of Louis sitting in his living room, it's just that usually they're sitting much closer and Nick's nervous for completely opposite reasons than he is now. Besides, in Nick's dreams, the state of Louis’ outfit is usually even lesser than it is today.

He sits down on the other end of the sofa and turns towards Louis a bit, hoping his face is expressing more the expectancy he's feeling than the actual fear someone has died.

Nick's breath actually hitches when he thinks of Harold. “Is everyone alright? No one's died, right?”

“You think-” Louis shakes his head while he laughs all breathy and weird and Nick hasn't ever made Louis laugh and he isn't counting this instance as success either. “It's, well, I guess it's the opposite, actually.”

It's the middle of the night and Louis expects Nick to think in riddles? “I've been asleep for an hour already,” Nick blinks at him, his voice desperate and slow and beginning for Louis to show some compassion for the elderly and exhausted, “so if you could just say what it is you came here to say, that would be lovely, since I need to go back to bed.” It's on the tip of Nick's tongue to make a proposition for Louis to join him, but he bites his cheek when Louis’ eyes glaze with heat that isn't bedroom related. From nervous to a little hysteric to a full on angry frown Nick isn't sure he deserves with quite such a force, Louis is a modern marvel of unleashed and uncontrolled emotions. It's a little bit beautiful, actually, but then Nick is completely and utterly biased when it comes to correlating Louis with beauty.

Nick stifles a laugh at the thought he's come to think of everything about Louis Tomlinson as beautiful, but here he is, watching Louis’ eyes sparkle with something close to hate, thinking he could drown in the blue of them. It's pathetic is what it is.

And just when Nick's getting ready to compare Louis to a summer's day,  Louis blinks, sets his face, presses his lips into a tight angry line and huffs out, “Well, I'm pregnant, so there. Goodnight.”

He doesn't move to leave though. Louis crosses his arms and sits back on the sofa while all Nick does is frown, a bit like he's gone stupid, because he must’ve gone stupid. When he un-sticks his tongue from the top of his mouth, he croaks out a squeaky, “Sorry, what?”

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

_New Year's party_

It’s a scale, really, that goes from either boring to half naked, or from sober to absolutely slosh. Nick’s happily comfortable in the middle at the moment, with a glass of white wine spritzer in his hand, because the first day of the New Year is for regret and being sick, and Nick is ready to face both.

There are a few people landing on either side of him. Alexa is chatting with Pig and Stinky, which puts her right where she usually ends up, and Pixie is still sitting in George’s lap, but that’s only because she was terribly late and has quite a few shots to catch up with.

There’s a good balance of people he knows and loves, people Nick’s pretty sure he still remembers why he’s invited and then about a half of people he has to pretend to care about. Though it’s maybe not pretending with the way Nick’s feeling all happy and excited for them to be here with him, all of them surrounded by wonderful people. And it’s all a bit wonderful, actually, because they’re all in his house and there are ribbons and lanterns everywhere, and by the looks of things, everyone’s having a great time drinking the old year away.

The last year should be drank far, far away, into some kind of dark pit where it’ll never come back from, ever, if anyone asks Nick. It wasn’t bad in the grand scheme of things, but in the way he’s been chasing after a boy for almost the entirety of it, feeling like a lost pathetic love-sick puppy has been well. Nick would rather put that behind him, please and thank you ever so. At least no one knows besides Harry, who isn’t the kind of friend who’d make fun of Nick for being epically desperate. Nick has Aimee, Pix and Alexa for that. Colette is for late night wine drinking and Fran is for the parties neither of them should still be attending in this day and - their - age. Harry has been sympathetic as ever, it’s just that his, “Just give it time, Nicky,” has done fuck all to actually help Nick out in his predicament of being arse over tits infatuated with the little mongrel of a stupid, stupid boy.

So, Nick has his resolutions at the ready. He actually wrote them down on a piece of paper he found in his jeans this morning and everything. Be a better friend is number one, though right at this moment, as he’s carrying about five glasses over to the living room for his _friends_ , he’s having trouble remembering why he thinks he isn’t the best friend anyone could ever ask for. Nick definitely wants to drink less and party less and eat less if that will help him lose a few pounds. None of those have made it on the list if anyone asks though. Especially Aimee. He’s very happy with himself at the moment, even if he drinks too much, goes to too many parties and hasn’t been able to say no to carbs as of yet. Nick is fucking peachy.

The one things Nick’s put on the list more out of habit than thought, was a relationship that lasted longer than half a Bake Off season. All good objectives, except Nick knows he’ll fail one by one by the time February rolls around, and all without having to try. Not to mention he has his mind set on who he wants that relationship to be with and it’d be better to put down ‘land on the moon’. Nick’s chances would be far greater.

When he reaches his living room, Nick feels less like the life of the party and more like finding Colette for a smoke and a chat, which is a good idea actually, so it’s too bad he gets side tracked by not having a glass in his hand when he distinctly remembers getting himself one as well after he’s done handing them out.

Nick’s been on white wine spritzers all night to at least try to avoid the hangover he can feel on the edges of his brain already.

 _Who is drinking my wine spritzer?_ Nick thinks, standing in front of everyone like a weirdo, looking at their hands. _And how dare Louis Tomlinson steal my drink?_ Though it’s not the missing and now found drink that makes Nick’s stomach swoop when he looks at Louis Tomlinson, he’s pretty sure. It’s Louis. It’s always somehow Louis that does that.

“Oi, thief. Did your mum not teach you better?” Nick asks Louis before his brain has a chance to catch up with his mouth to explain why it isn’t a good idea to say that to Louis of all people. Nick makes up for it by saying, “Who invited you, anyway?” which Nick knows doesn’t magically make everything all better and delete the last ten seconds of everyone’s life, but he’s pretending it does, anyway.

Louis scowls. “Harry did.”

“Harry did.” Nick stares at Louis like he’s seeing for the first time, which he isn’t, of course not. Louis is Harry’s best friend, which means that when his junior assistant producer decides to bring his shortest, snappiest, most hot friend to work for shits and giggles, Nick’s day is both ruined and gloriously improved. And Harry must’ve decided that Nick won’t be enjoying tonight either, because he’d rather not think about Louis Tomlinson any more if he can help it. Nick wants to start sticking with his resolutions from this minute on.

Discarding that idea in the next second, Nick wedges himself between the arm of his sofa and Louis with only a bit of a put upon sigh, because Nick’s tall, he’s gangly and he isn’t afraid to use it against Louis’ general person. He grabs _his_ glass and takes a sip while battling Louis’ hands away from his face, because, “Oi, it’s my drink, let me have it for a minute for fuck’s sake.”

“You’ll drink it all,” Louis wines and goes for the glass again. Nick hands it over because he isn’t going to play a game with an actual child tonight.

“I’ll drink as much as I want to,” Nick says in a mature, grown up way, without ever so slightly pinching Louis’ thigh. The way Louis’ cheeks flush at that makes something flare in Nick’s chest. “Don’t you have better places to be at, anyway?” Nick’s nothing if not a sick masochist. It doesn’t mean, though, that he isn’t actually surprised Louis is here and not at some other house party that would be more age-appropriate for someone like Louis. God, Nick is old.

“Why? Saying your own party sucks?” Louis snips. His satisfied grin makes Nick scoff.

“No, Tomlinson, I’m saying everyone here is thirty, flirty and thriving, and you’re barely an infant and drinking _my_ drink.”

Licking over his lips like he’s catching a stray drop which Nick for a fact knows is not there, because he’s been looking at Louis’ mouth while he talked, Louis leans closer and says against the shell of Nick’s ear, “I thought that was your type.” Nick’s not proud to admit, but that goes straight to his prick.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

“It's- is it- are you saying-”

Louis whines. He isn't looking at Nick, instead he’s staring something fierce at his twisted fingers that have gone a bit red and a bit white at his knuckles, not that Nick blames him, because he can feel his own face doing weird strange twisty things as well and he’s more than happy that Louis doesn’t look up to see it. Nick woke up not ten minutes ago as a single radio DJ, a happy owner of a quite nice house, thanks, and two mushy dogs, with nothing as precious to his name as a pair of snazzy YSL boots, and now, just by opening his front door to the flying ninja that is Louis Tomlinson, he's a father? _Is_ he? Has Louis even said? Maybe he's going around to random people's houses scaring the actual shit out of them as some sort of sick Louis Tomlinson joke only one person ever finds funny - and that doesn’t include Harry.

 _God_. Nick? A dad? Why is the mere idea so frighteningly brilliant? Nick would be an amazing if a little bit of a mess of a dad. Nick is going to be an amazing dad. He’s going to be sick first, but then he’ll be amazing. Except if he isn’t and he’ll fuck his kid up properly and good with no hope of making it better, because this won’t be like Pig’s obsession with his shoes, will it? It properly counts when it’s a child, Nick’s sure, that you don’t pet them and give them a treat when no one’s looking even when another pair of boots gets all slobbered over. _God_ , but Nick wants to be a good dad. Always has, really.

It’s been _one of those things_ since Nick can remember. He’s had to listen to his friends talk about honeymoon destinations and white dresses and venues and rings and ‘this is it, isn’t it?’ that sounded half desperate and half bone-deep content. It’s been nothing but cakes and flowers and first dance songs, which Nick all willingly, more or less, participated in if there was enough to drink it all down with, but in the meanwhile, single or even happily monogamous – as happily as you can be when you’re panicking all the while someone’s holding your hand about all the things that you could do to fuck up before you actually manage to fuck anything up – Nick liked to think about names. Names like Georgia and Charlotte. Or Daffodil to be as extra as everyone gives him credit for. Aurora or Ursula, like the stars, but only on the nights when he’d felt a bit too lonely for comfort and a fantasy daydream was all that kept him from drowning his sorrows. Maybe something along the lines of Pink, because it would be, wouldn’t it? So right after it’s born, the baby would be all pink and new and _god_ , a _baby_. Nick needs to sit down. Or no, he needs to lay back and _breathe_.

“It’s mine,” Nick says before Louis can whine again. It sounds less like a dying man’s question and Nick even tries to mould his face into something at least a little bit normal. His chest is practically bursting open with something he doesn’t even know what to call, but that’s fine as long as the feeling isn’t transferred anywhere near his face.

Louis looks up at him finally, though the frown does nothing to reassure the panic crawling up Nick’s throat because _god._ “There’s no chance it isn’t, so, yeah.”

“What?” Nick blinks his eyes to try and get them away from Louis but they won’t budge, his little baby girl or boy Pink. Nick can’t breathe.

“I’m saying,” Louis breathes in. He breathes out. “It’s yours.”

Louis doesn’t look happy, why is Nick so terrifyingly happy? Why are his hands shaking? _Mine_? Nick wants to ask. _It’s mine. I’m going to be a dad._ Instead, his mouth pulls wide and far until his cheeks hurt and he’s grinning like an absolute idiot Louis probably already thinks he is. He isn’t wrong, that’s for certain. “That’s- I’m-” _So happy_ , Nick can’t say and it’s partly because of the look on Louis’ face.

Louis stutters a half aborted sentence Nick can’t make out, because they’ve both forgotten how to talk, apparently.

“I’m so,” Nick starts, because one of them needs to start talking and if it isn’t going to be Louis, it’ll have to be him. He clears his throat and manages to get out a weak sounding, “I’m so happy,” that does sound more of a question than anything else, yes, but it’s something.

“Well, good,” Louis takes a deep breath that looks like something Harry taught him, “Because I’m keeping it and you don’t have to, like, be involved in the process.” Nick’s sure that Louis’ repeating someone else’s words. He fucking knows, because usually, even if he is a little mean bugger, he never actually manages to stab Nick with his words. “That’s what I wanted to, like - Yeah.”

It’s through the mess of _am I going to be a dad now or not?_ That Nick bursts out with, “Do you want to get married? Is that what you - Do you want to be in a committed relationship for the baby? I’m not the best at any of it, but if that’s what you want…”

“No.” Louis stops him, quite unnecessarily, harshly. The way he’s looking at Nick, he wishes Louis would go back to staring at his fingers. “No, I don’t want a relationship or a wedding or any of it. I don’t need anything.” And then, like it’s all still just a joke designed to really kick Nick right in the gut and laugh at him while he keels over, Louis adds softly, “With you.” His tone does nothing to cushion the blow though. Nick doesn’t want to be dramatic and say it’s hard to breathe all of a sudden, but it’s hard to breathe all of a sudden.

It’s a bit hard to watch too, Louis clearing his throat and gearing himself for more. How can there be more? Nick is going to need his puff at this rate. “The other night was okay, like, it was fun, right?” Nick feels a need to say it wasn't that night, it was the morning after, when it must've happened, when they were too lazy and still half asleep and not careful enough. He doesn’t though, he sits there and listens to Louis say, “But we were stupid and drunk and now _this_ ,” and watches as Louis points to his stomach which is still as flat as it was the other night. Also toned and tanned, but definitely not marked anymore with the bites Nick had left there, because it's been nearly two whole months. _Shit_ , it’s nearly been two months. “It’s not what I planned on, but, if you want to be involved, great. But don’t make me think you’re going to be there and then you’re going to disappear.”

Nick straightens up. “I won’t.”

“I’m not going to be your new obsession,” Louis mutters. “And neither wills them. She. Or, or him. Whatever.”

“No, no, of course not, I promise.”

“Great, then if you’re done proposing to me, I’m going to go home.”

Nick watches Louis stand up and give him another look. He huffs out something quietly that Nick doesn’t hear and saunters halfway to the door, before Nick realizes his brain has gone a bit mushy with the flood of things that happened - not just the baby and the fact Louis turned down his proposal, because apparently, _Nick actually proposed to Louis Tomlinson -_ but the rest of it too. Louis came to tell him, probably as soon as he found out. Or maybe he's been waiting for the right time, waiting for it to pass is something Nick would’ve definitely done as against logic as it would have seemed. Maybe Louis has been waiting for the right time, but it’s not like there is such a thing, is there? It’s a bit like pulling off a plaster and god knows Nick’s never been a fan of the damn things.

_Shit, this is actually happening._

“Wait,” Nick stops Louis right before he’s about to open the door. The vase is still in the corner but it’ll have to wait. “When am I going to see you again?” Nick cringes at the wording because it’s fucking too close for comfort, standing here, asking Louis that. It’s worth it though, because Nick can’t just let Louis walk away again without something to look forward to that’s a little nearer in time than 7 months.

“I have my first appointment next Tuesday.”

“So, next Tuesday?”

“Next Tuesday, Nicholas. I’ll text you.”

“You’ll text me,” Nick nods, his hair flopping down in front of his eyes. They need to go to sleep, both of them. And Louis needs a puffer jacket of his own.

“Bye, Nicholas,” Louis smiles at him, and though it’s a mixture of an embarrassed, pitying, almost happy thing, it’s comforting.

Nick nods again and says as Louis jumps over the three little steps in front of his door and gives Nick an actual real life heart attack again, “Bye and _be careful_!”

After watching Louis walk down the short pathway and down the pavement, all the way until he’s disappeared around the corner, Nick doesn’t move away from his front door for at least five minutes. He stands there, smiling at nothing down the road, like the stupidest happiest idiot who’s just found out he’s going to be a dad. _Christ_. Nick needs to call his mum.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

_New Year's party_

Just as Nick’s about to lean his hip against the counter, because David isn’t getting what Nick is saying - of course it matters that your music taste is objectively good and yes David, there is such a thing. Bad taste equals bad person, who doesn’t get that? Nick’s taste is flawless, of course, that goes without saying, but David? He’s not the brightest to begin with, a bit too drunk to comprehend the words coming out of Nick’s mouth and too unsteady on his feet already that Nick’s afraid he’ll topple over, but it is New Year, so Nick won’t hold that against the man as well. Though, he really ought to and maybe just about too as well, when Louis presses himself between them, getting right up flush against Nick like it’s no big deal whatsoever. Nick’s heart nearly gives out with the press of their chests like this, so close, Louis’ warmth bleeding into Nick’s skin.

“I,” Louis stabs Nick’s chest with a pointy finger, “did _not_ come here to watch you flirt with-” Louis whirls around and asks, “What’s your name?” sharp and quick, turning his back to David’s shaky outstretched hand, “David, Nicholas.”

With his mouth open, Nick stares down at Louis, and literally, he has to look down because Louis is quite shorter, not that Nick’s noticed that the first time they met a year ago and quick as anything, thought about pressing Louis up against the wall and holding him there with ease before he even knew his name.

Nick’s stuck between shivering, moaning and asking what exactly is happening, because Louis is still close, so fucking close to him that Nick doesn’t think he’s imagining being able to feel his harsh breath over the collar of his shirt, and Nick’s also pretty fucking sure he knows what Louis is saying and why, but there’s about a ninety-nine percent chance Nick is making it all up in a delirious alcoholic state of pure fucking want. Nick needs to switch to water.

“What-?” Nick starts to say, but then Louis jabs his chest again and clearly mutters, “I said what I said, now do as you please.”

With an indignant huff, Louis’ gone.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

Nick checks his watch again. It’s ten forty-three in the morning, which makes Louis twenty-eight minute late. Twenty- _nine_. The chairs in the waiting room were not made for comfort and neither for the aesthetic, Nick thinks grumpily, because now he’s in a sour mood and the chairs are god awful. He’s been sitting here long enough to try and blame Louis for his soggy socks. Five more minutes and Nick will more than willingly blame bad weather on Louis as well.

Nick has checked his phone about a million times to see he didn’t actually manage to muck up the time of the day or something, but Nick hasn’t. The text clearly states fifteen past ten on Tuesday, February 13th. He’s even texted Louis again to see if Louis didn’t fuck up the dates, not that he replied, but the lovely nurse who’s been frowning at Nick in either a sad pathetic way or a pissed off, ‘clearly you’re not serious about this baby thing’ way - Nick doesn’t know which is worse to be honest-, confirmed that yes, she has a Tomlinson, Louis booked for today.

Nick’s in the process of typing up the eleventh text, just a row of question marks to be a) annoying, b) express his worry and c) to be able to text the ‘where are you’ right after as the twelfth. The nurse keeps asking him if _mister_ Tomlinson has showed up yet even if she can clearly bloody see that Nick’s still sitting by his bloody self.

Nick had to take a day off work, which in and of itself wasn’t a problem, at least not more of one that the usual misery of calling in sick when he isn’t really and facing the sad, sad tone of Lucy tutting at him as if he’s kicked a puppy - like Nick would _ever_ \- but being left hanging in the doctor’s office by his soon to be co-parent - which is still weird to think about - is being as irresponsible as Nick can manage. And usually, he’s pretty all over the place, flighty, rather not be serious, thanks, and this almost takes the cake.

Though, in the thirty minutes of waiting, Nick’s come up with a few new choice things to call Louis Tomlinson. He felt guilty for the first fifteen minutes, because what if something awful has happened and here Nick is, calling Louis a no good knob who can’t tell time, in his head? Nick got over it by the twentieth minute.

Thirty-one appears on his phone and Nick sends another text. This time, he’s less reserved. _You better not have been in an accident_ , he sends, cringing at the thought Louis has actually been plummeted by a bloody bus or mugged and stabbed or attacked by one of those flying ninjas in the middle of the night. Nick’s always liked Louis, even if he was loathe to admit to it to anyone ever when not drunk (except that one particular time with Harold Nick only half regrets), but this new feeling of something much stronger surging up into his throat at the thought of Louis getting hurt is new and unfamiliar, before it was a lingering fancying of a fit boy. Now it’s something fierce. Nick still isn’t sure he if should tell Louis that.

Before Nick can send off _git_ that would communicate the exact opposite while still implying a certain amount of affection, he can hear a ping coming from the stairs on his right and finally, thirty-three minutes later than their appointment was scheduled, Louis strolls into the waiting room with all his limbs attached. Clearly the bus and the flying ninjas must’ve missed him.

Nick can’t help but look him up and down, thinking again of how Louis’ underdressed for the season. When Louis gets close enough to hear him, instead of hello, Nick says, “You’re late,” because Nick’s sour mood is far too gone to salvage.

Louis looks him from boot to hair as well. Nick blushes. He didn’t do anything exceptional today. Did his hair get all saggy in the rain? God damn Louis and the thankfully unknowing power he has over Nick.

“The _bus_ was late,” Louis shrugs and strolls away to the nurse’s desk. When he comes back with a mountain of paperwork clipped to a board, he smiles at Nick and asks, “Were you worried?”

Bloody… “Of course I was worried. I sent you about a gazillion texts.”

“Oh?” Louis flips through the pile with a smirk. It turns into a scowl before he gets to the end. “Didn’t hear my phone, sorry.”

Nick thinks he gasps. “Sorry? How about not ignoring me next time, instead?”

Clicking his pen and looking unblinkingly down at the papers, Louis asks a quiet, “Were you actually worried?” that makes Nick think his answer should be more coherent than a simple, _yes, you idiot._

“Of course I was. You’re…” Important? He is, isn’t he? Louis’ climbed that list like a stubborn knobhead that he is, right to the top, _and_ he’s secured the number two spot along the way. There are no little victories when it comes to Louis, but Nick already knew that. Instead of all that, because he is a perfectly functional individual, Nick says, “You could’ve been attacked by a flying ninja.”

It almost seems like Louis didn’t hear him, because he’s ticking off boxes so intently, until he mutters, “I can’t believe I’m having your baby,” loud enough Nick is definitely meant to hear.

And that’s, well… Nick sort of can’t either if he’s honest.

He’s still not called Eileen, he hasn’t ran over to Aimee’s and when Pixie asked why he was _so happy, you’re freaking me out_ , Nick shrugged and lied. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s not even that he’d have to explain who Louis is and why it’s Louis and how exactly it’s Louis, even though it is a bit that - it’s that Nick’s read, because of course that’s what he’s been doing practically all the time now, that you’re not supposed to tell until at least the fourteenth week. So he’s not. Nick is going to keep his big mouth shut for the first time in his life and wait. It might also give him time to drop Louis’ name here and there, just to test the waters. Aimee will have a lot to say either way.

“How am I supposed to know all this?”

“Know what?” Nick peers over at the questions. He’s pretty confident the only reason he hasn’t panicked yet about being a dad is because he hasn’t fully realized its happening.

“My entire family’s health history,” Louis’ keeps on scowling at the papers. Having a baby is a beautiful miracle and all that, but the amount of paperwork they’re - Nick is the moral support here - supposed to do is absolutely crazy.

Just when Nick is about to suggest skipping that section, the nurse pipes up with a, “You can do that part at home and bring it with you next time.” Not that she gives them any more attention than that, since a couple must’ve come out of the examination room just now. And yeah, Nick might be panicking a little now. They’re next in line.

“Fine, whatever.” Louis ticks a few more boxes, folds half the pile and sticks it in his jacket pocket and by then, Nick is sweating and their name gets called.

“Come on,” Louis says when Nick can’t seem to stand up. “I’m not waiting for you,” he adds over his shoulder.

Nick pretty bloody sure none of this is going to wait for him to catch up, is it? It’s all going to happen whether he wants it, is ready or can even do it or not. No one’s going to ask, but then he didn’t think anyone would, really. So he gets himself up and follows Louis to the doctor’s office.

From then on, it’s all a bit of a blur.

Nick tries to pay attention when Louis gets his blood pressure measured and to look away when he gets blood drawn. Then he sits on another, though much more comfortable, chair while Louis leaves to give his urine sample, and nods as the doctor tells him something Nick bets he should be paying attention to. Nick doesn’t think he can though.

She looks like a lovely woman, their doctor. She has baby pictures all over the wall above her desk. They’re brand new too; still all alien and pale pink looking babies as well as toddlers here and there with one front tooth and curly hair. It’s all there, staring right at Nick, telling him what to expect. Nick read that book too, ‘ _What to Expect When Expecting’_ , not that he remembers a word of it now. There was even a nice practical list of questions to ask the doctor on the first visit. Maybe he should do that next time, when he’ll be able to swallow around his giant tongue. Nick is going to make a list as soon as he gets home. He just needs to remember.

Nick sits and watches Louis go through the motions, wondering only in a far away, slightly too detached way if he’s supposed to go through them as well, until the doctor asks, and “Any questions?”

Nick hums. He has a lot, actually, a whole entire book full, or he had them, past tense. Thankfully, Nick doesn’t need to explain the different tense forms, because Louis shakes his head, says, “No, it’s alright, thanks.”

“I know this might be a lot,” the doctor clearly says more to Nick than Louis, because it’s him that’s gone all broken and uncomprehending, “But for right now, we’ll just wait for the first round of tests and we’ll talk more for your first antenatal check-up, okay? Nurse Marjorie will give you a date at the desk. Until then, if you have any questions, she’ll give you a number to call.”

“Thanks, doc,” Louis says and gets up, because this is it. This is what Nick has been eagerly waiting for, and now, just as it’s all over, he realizes how conveniently he’s let it all fly past him like a whoosh of a leaf lost in the wind. Great. Nick’s fucking up already.

“March 8, alright boys?” The nurse says, writing something down even as her eyes skip over to them. Good thing she does, though. She reminds Nick he should write down the date too. And the questions for next time, Nick can’t forget the questions for next time.

They say their goodbyes again and before Nick’s even aware, he and Louis are standing outside, Louis clearly shivering in his thin, too thin, jacket.

Taking a second just to gather his thoughts and put them into some kind of order, Nick says, “We should meet up, have lunch, or something. Drinks?”

Louis looks at him a bit sideways. “Can’t. Pregnant, remember.”

“What?” Nick has to shake his head. “You can’t have lunch?” It’s a bit outrageous sounding in his head and saying it out loud doesn’t make him feel any smarter.

“I can do the lunch bit, Nicholas, don’t be stupid. I just can’t do the drinks.”

“Oh, right.” No alcohol, Nick reminds himself. The thought of solidarity sends an unwelcome shiver down his spine. “Right. Lunch then?”

“Sure. When?”

“Whenever.”

“Great. I’ll text you,” Louis says, the third time Nick’s heard him say it now, and gives him a half aborted wave along with a slightly confused frown before he turns around and walks away.

Nick doesn’t know why, but the only thing floating through his absolutely scrambled minds is that he’s walking away with their baby. Louis and their baby. That, for some reason, doesn’t make Nick panic. Not at all.

/*/*/*/*/

Nick tells Aimee. He isn’t planning it or anything, it’s not like he’s made a spinach pie and lured Aimee over with it along with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc that she loves. It all just happens. Spontaneously. Completely at random.

It ends up going as well as Nick thought it would and about as horrible as he hoped it wouldn't. His life is glorious and everyone should be jealous.

After they’ve finished the bottle together, well, Nick’s not ashamed to say he drank more than half himself - though he is a bit worried for himself - it all just bursts out of him. And with ‘bursts out’ Nick means his tongue is loose enough, he’s bitten his nails to the quick for probably the first time in his life and he’s stretched his jumper beyond repair all in the ten minutes the telly’s been on. His mind is buzzing, and not from the wine either, his heart keeps doing this weird panicky stutter thing - a start of either a heart or a panic attack, Nick’s not sure - and he has to keep reminding himself that _it’s Aimee for fuck’s sake_. It’s not like he’s telling his mum and sister. _God_ , Nick still has to tell his mum and sister.

“I’m pregnant,” is what the burst is. Nick half yells it, actually. Aimee jumps a bit.

Her face twists up into a funny looking grin before she shorts. “Ha, good one.” And then she just turns back to the telly and sips her wine like Nick hasn’t just had an aneurysm getting that out.

“No, it’s - Well,” Nick turns towards her on the couch, because this is it, this is the moment he’s speaking it into the universe, and so it will become true. Because the doctor’s office was more like a play-pretend. Louis telling him was just a thing, a blip, a snowflake that got the avalanche going. Aimee is the god, here. She’s the avalanche. “Well, _I’m_ not pregnant, but Louis is and it’s mine. Should really say we’re pregnant, shouldn't I?”

It’s the moment everything goes still and quiet that he knows the universe is processing the information and deciding whether she’ll knock him over the head with her stiletto or not. Nick needs a good knock right about now, probably.

“I’m sorry,” Aimee turns to face him. It’s bloody scary, the look in her eyes, “But it sounded like you said you got someone pregnant,” she stares blankly and Nick feels compelled to nod, but when Aimee goes on to say, “Which can’t possibly be true, because you’re thirty and obviously know how condoms work. So, I’m hearing you all wrong, right? Or have you been keeping a secret boyfriend for years?” Nick stops nodding.

“I did. Use a condom. I used a condom. And he’s not- We’re not. Together.”

“And the condom broke when you were shagging this not-boyfriend of yours?”

Nick shrugs. This is going to sound not so good. He and Louis should’ve planned it better. But then Louis wouldn’t be pregnant, would he? Hell, if they weren’t as drunk as they were that night, nothing would’ve happened in the first place. “I mean… I used one condom that night, but Louis stayed over and then I might not have used one in the morning?”

Aimee smacks the side of his head. “Fucking irresponsible,” she mutters under her breath. “Might have,” she snorts. “So you got Louis pregnant.”

Nick nods.

“And who, exactly, is Louis?”

“Oh, right, he's um…. Harry's mate?” Because of the blank look on her face, Nick goes on, “The short bloke? A bit mean and prickly?” The cutest boy you’ve ever seen, Nick doesn’t say. With bright blue eyes and a quick fucking tongue Nick’s wanted to taste for a while now. “He was here for New Year’s.”

Aimee blinks a bit like her eyelids have been glued together with what Nick's just said. “You mean to say you got that boy pregnant?”

“Well, I mean, _we_ got him pregnant, yeah.”

It goes still and quiet again as they sit there, Aimee not looking at him and Nick begging her with his eyes to help him wrap his head around it too. All he's been doing for the past week is stalking Louis on Instagram and reading the stupid books that don't deal with what to do when you didn't plan to expect with a bloke you don't really know but fancy something rotten. No one had Nick in mind when writing those baby books.

“Have you spoken to Louis?” Aimee suddenly asks, in that determined, straight brow, stiff lip way of hers. It makes her look too serious.

“We've been to the doctor's last week.”

“Pregnancy test?”

“Yes and a bunch of paperwork.”

“Good. Who's the doctor?”

“Er. Brown something? Or Barron? Something like that, yeah.”

“God, Nick,” suddenly Aimee's eyes are all misty and big and she's biting her lip like she's about to cry, which is ridiculous, because Aimee doesn't cry, and if she cries, then Nick will definitely cry, so she can’t be crying. He wouldn't even know what they'd be crying about. Maybe about something as simple as Nick being a dad. _Shit_.

“Aimee,” he says as a clear warning she ignores. She pulls him into a death-grip of a hug instead, saying, “Oh, Nick,” over and over again. It's the wine; it's making them soppy and emotional.

When she pulls away, she has a blob of wet mascara down one of her cheeks, messy and black, and Nick's just about to make fun of her to lighten the mood, but she says, “You're going to be such a good dad,” out of nowhere. It practically knocks the wind out of Nick's lungs.

He wheezes, cringing. His tongue is getting all too big and in the way again. “What if…” Nick can't say it out loud. _What if I'm not?_ Because he isn't speaking that into existence. He doesn't dare, not even if he’s been driving himself crazy thinking it for weeks now, ever since Louis’ told him. There’s about a fifty-fifty chance, Nick’s sure, of him fucking up royally on this whole thing.

“No, no,” she shakes Nick's shoulders. “You'll be brilliant. To Louis too. You'll be great.”

“Louis's great. I like him. He's…” Can Nick actually say he thinks the father of his yet to be born child is cute? Even if the cute is in a very sharp, cutting, fiery sort of way? Where he wanted to throttle Louis just as much as he wanted to give him a nice, long cuddle? Poison him just as much as learn how he takes his tea? Drown him as well as give him a bath, maybe join him, give him a massage as well. Maybe they could share a shower too, so Nick can press Louis up against the wall and, well. Nick should focus on what Aimee’s saying, maybe.

“You’ll have to throw a dinner party. Show him off.”

“Oh, well,” it occurs to Nick just then that, “Me and Louis aren't like, proper dating.”

“Nicholas?” Aimee is getting ready to smack him again, Nick can tell.

“We're having lunch tomorrow. Sort of a get to know each other type thing.”

Aimee groans because Nick isn't able to make that sound particularly great or in his favour, but only because it's not, is it? Getting to know someone while they're already pregnant with your baby. It's a bit backwards and all, but Nick's already had a talk with himself that he won't be discouraged, he's doing this, he can't wait. _Yay_ , and all that.

“Nick,” Aimee sighs. Its pity, he's getting Aimee's pity. Great. She shakes her head and must change her mind. Instead of something that will make Nick feel guilty and bad and like he’s not a good person, she says, “I'm happy, alright? I'm happy for you and for Louis, now pour me another glass. I'm also not drunk enough.”

She calls Nick at midnight, a good two hours after she’s left and Nick’s crawled into bed. She wakes him up with first the ringing of his bloody phone, and then the whispered, “You're going to be brilliant,” so she doesn't wake up Ian too.

Even though Nick's soul feels a bit scratched at and wearing thin, he stays up with Aimee, face half in the pillow, talking about all the things he'll need to talk to Louis about. One of those is maybe asking him on a date. Apparently, the lunch doesn't count, because it's not a date if both parties don't realize it's a date, Nick, don't be ridiculous.

When Aimee asks if Nick wants to date Louis, be in a proper relationship with him, Nick makes a sound that apparently, tells Aimee all she needs to know.

Nick wonders which one of them is more ridiculous.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

_New Year's party_

Aimee and Ian are sitting on the couch, half over each other, twisted around like they’re trying to keep the love between them as close as possible, which might just be how Nick sees them these days, if he’s honest. They’re happy and in love and Nick isn’t, not really, and it’s like the contrast between them and him is jumping up at Nick all loud and annoying like, _Hey, hey, look at me, la_. Nick hasn’t got around to getting that water.

He has been preoccupied, Nick has been, he remembers. And not only that, he’s come over to find Aimee because he needs to tell her about this thing with Louis, how he can’t get the stupid little idiot out of his head and he might just do something about it tonight if Louis lets him. And by the looks of it, because Louis is standing at the patio door, talking to some chirpy blonde Nick doesn’t know - this is his party, right? - but he has his eyes on Nick and his eyebrow is raised and if Louis comes over to ask Nick the question Nick is pretty sure Louis is going to ask, Nick won’t be able to say anything but, yes, please, _fuck_.

Aimee, however, isn’t listening. She keeps talking. Ian is agreeing with her. Nick is nodding as well, it’s just he can’t keep his eyes away from Louis. Not even when Louis excuses himself to the blonde bloke and walks right past where Nick is folded on the coffee table.

It feels like some kind of call, like Louis is asking. It feels like being lassoed and pulled and like Louis has him hooked around his little finger.

Without much more than, “Talk later,” Nick stands and follows Louis.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

“I'll have the beef burger, chips, stuffed calamari and the bread sticks.”

Nick closes his gobsmacked mouth with an unflattering sound. “I'll have the Greek salad and steamed vegetables on the side.”

“On the side of what?” Louis asks him blankly, watching the waiter leave their table.

“My salad?”

“So all you're having is a bunch of greens? Way to make me feel like a pig, Nicholas,” Louis scoffs and rolls his eyes. They are pretty eyes, even as they’re judging Nick.

“What?” Nick whirls around, for what reason he doesn't know, maybe to check if anyone's heard Louis, because what the actual fuck is going on? “I'm sorry?”

“I'm hungry all the time, okay, stop judging me.”

“I'm not,” Nick says like a question, because it's hard to see through the mess of question marks floating in front of his eyes at the moment. “I'm- Do you want me to order something else?”

“What?” Louis leans back in his chair, crosses his arms across his chest. “More vegetables?”

Nick breathes in deeply. He exhales and takes in another breath, trying to think positive, happy thoughts. Its okay, this is fine. “Louis,” he says slowly, clearly, “I'm sorry. I had a big breakfast and would rather not stuff my face with more food.”

Humming and assessing him like he's a judge on a talent show and Nick is a particularly unconvincing act, Louis nods. “I'll ignore the bit where you think I'm stuffing my face with food, because I may have, possibly, overreacted. But Harry said that's normal,” Louis quickly adds in his defence. And it is, Nick thinks, for Louis it's perfectly normal. Pregnant or not. “Harry said I’m stress eating.”

This is all going a bit sideways; from Nick running late because of work and Louis giving him a right stern talking to about hypocrisy and something else Nick couldn't quite follow, because about every two minutes since Louis’ told him he’s pregnant, Nick goes into a catatonic state of realization that he's going to be a dad. It's not a bad state to be in, Nick’s found, though a bit jittery and nausea inducing at times, it's just a bit much, if he's honest. It's all a bit much.

People usually plan these things, don't they? When they're ready and in love and know more than the first and last name of the person they want to have a baby with. Granted, Nick was always swayed away from the normal, conforming side of things, but it would've been easier to get his head around it if he had done things the regular way just this once. It's all still a horrible tangled _pink_ mess in his head. A wrinkled, big-eyed, ten-toed, ten-fingered mess.

“We need to talk about this, I think,” Nick says when he starts feeling a bit sweaty. Though in his defence, Nick also hasn’t stopped sweating since Louis’ told him. It’s probably a side effect of all the catatonic states.

Louis sighs and sits back a bit in his chair. “Yeah.”

“So”

“So”

Nick can’t even begin to imagine what raising a child will be like with Louis. Though he isn’t about to say that out loud, and mostly because he doesn’t know if they’ll even do it together. They aren’t, are they? Together. What if Louis packs his bags one day and just… leaves? He could, but Nick is praying he won't. Maybe this is where he should start believing in some kind of god.

With his mind all out of sorts, Nick asks, “You aren't going to leave me, right?” a bit out of nowhere. “You won't pack your bags and our baby,” it's not got any less strange to say, that, “and leave me behind, right?”

Louis blinks at him a bit like Nick's making him stupid before he frowns and shakes his head. “What are you on about?”

“We just, we said we were going to do this together and I want to know if we are. Doing this, together.” There, Nick's said it. It's out there. Nick just hopes someone's listening.

“You think,” Louis starts, all slow and careful, looking around the waiter when he brings them their food, “that I would what, run away? From you?”

Nick doesn't miss the underlying message; Louis thinks Nick's thick.

There's really nothing to add to that, is there, because Louis’ right on the nose, so Nick shrugs and tries not to feel embarrassed by his own insecurities. It's just Nick would rather not be left like that if he can help it, and this, asking Louis about his future intentions is Nick helping it in his own inelegant way.

“Well, I wouldn't.” Louis’ chin gets all high and pointy; the look in his eyes something intense Nick doesn't know what to call. He doesn't know what it means, really, but that might be because he doesn't really know Louis, does he?

“Good. That's, yeah, good.”

His chin still high and mighty, Louis asks a somewhat less sure, “Will you?”

It takes Nick admittedly a second too long to realise what Louis’ asking. Now he hears how stupid it actually sounds. “No. I wouldn't.” Nick doesn't say he probably wouldn't leave even if there was no baby. It's not like he's been harassing Harry about Louis for nearly a year now. It's just luck that Louis took pity on New Year’s, just luck that he's now pregnant and Nick can harass Louis directly without middle mad. Nick still doesn't quite know, though, if it's good or bad luck. He guesses time will tell.

“Well then, I guess we're doing this. Together.”

Louis’ tone isn't as confident as Nick would like it to be, but he still nods, still says, “Together,” as sure as he can. It sounds pretty sure in the end.

They tuck into their food, Louis scoffing every three to five seconds at Nick's vegetable plate on the side of his salad, while he eats a bit of everything he ordered. The calamari does look pretty delicious and it's only after ten minutes of begging that Louis lets Nick have one.

“I'll let you have another if you promise to rub my feet when my ankles get all swollen and I can't move.”

It's a joke, Nick thinks. It's just a stupid joke that makes Nick imagine what it would be like to live with Louis, have a routine of watching telly in the evening with Louis’ feet in his lap. It's a bit too much, all in all, so Nick says, “Deal,” and takes another calamari while assessing the look on Louis’ face. There's a bit of panic, a bit of disbelief and a hint of success, its obvious Louis’ having trouble settling on just one of them.

“That's actually, um, something I wanted to ask.” Or Aimee told Nick to ask. Whatever, same thing. “You live with Harry now.”

After he doesn't go on, Louis nods. “Yes, Nicholas, I live with Harry,” he tucks on as an afterthought right before he bites into a chip, “And?”

“I would, I don't know… Maybe you'd want to live with me? Instead?” Nick had trouble deciding if it was too fast to ask or if he should've asked already or if he shouldn’t ask at all, because, well, it is Louis and he is Nick and besides that one night and a year before of following Louis around trying to see if Nick even had a chance of a shag, little less of having an actual child with him, there’s never been anything besides snappy, mean, light-hearted comments between them.

Now though, with how Louis’ face turns a particularly worrying shade of green as if he’s either gone bad or Nick’s question is going to make him sick up - wouldn’t that be _so_ funny? Nick would probably cry - it might not have been a good idea after all.

“Shit, _shit_ ,” Louis’ saying and pushing his chair away to get up and run off as soon as he can. Nick stares after him, because what the fuck is actually going on? Nick isn’t that horrible, is he? Does the thought of living with Nick actually repulse Louis on such an intense level? Nick’s heard some mean things in his life, from the typical ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ and the quite heartless ‘it’s definitely you, dear’, but never has anyone gotten sick from just the idea of Nick before. It’s… Nick wonders if he should just leave.

The waiter comes over, looking worried himself. Maybe a bit green, too. “Um, it seems that your friend is being sick in the bathroom.”

“I’ve got that, yes.”

“Shouldn’t you…”

Nick sighs. It’s not like it can get worse, can it? Nick asked Louis to move in and Louis got sick at the thought. The only thing that could go wrong now is Louis could get sick again by seeing Nick. Oh, well.

“Yeah, sorry. Um, can you bring the bill as well? I don’t think we’ll be finishing this.”

“Of course.”

With that, the waiter leaves their table and Nick goes to face his vomiting fate.

It’s actually much, much worse than Nick thought it would be, seeing Louis hunched over the toilet, the usually soft fringe falling over his sweaty forehead. For being nothing but unexpectedly expecting parents, Nick’s heart contracts at the sight something fierce. The need to make Louis feel better is overwhelming.

“Hey,” Nick starts as softly as knows how, crouches down next to Louis and places a tentative hand on the small of his back, “Hey, are you alright?”

If Louis could talk, Nick’s sure he’d say something like ‘do I look alright, knobhead?’ Now, Louis just groans.

“Do you need water? Or something? Anything?” Nick offers uselessly. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t even know what’s happening.

Louis groans again and wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. It’s not as gross as it should be. “No, ‘m fine. Just morning sickness or whatever.”

“Oh.” _Oh._ That’s what this is. Nick is tempted to point out how it’s actually after noon, but he thinks Louis would smack him over the head if he does. Instead of being a knobhead, Nick pinches himself, hard, so that maybe he’ll remember to read all those pregnancy books again and actually learn something, for fuck’s sake. “Still, do you need anything?”

“Yeah,” Louis voice is all raspy and dry. Nick really should’ve brought him a bottle of water. “To not be pregnant,” Louis laughs, though when Nick doesn’t, he sobers up and even almost winces. “Sorry, that was a joke, like. I didn’t… you know.”

With a new found determination, Nick waves it off. “Its fine, it’s funny, _ha_. But I’m not joking, Louis, I swear, I want this baby. I really do.” And, without having too hard of a think, Nick realizes it’s the absolute truth. Sure, it’s all upside down how it’s happening, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Nick _wants_ to have this baby, Nick _wants_ to be a dad, and though they’re still half strangers - even if Nick knows how Louis tastes, how he smells, how soft his face is first thing in the morning when he wakes up, can’t really get it out of his mind, actually - Nick _wants_ to have it with Louis. There’s something, maybe intuition, maybe his sheer stupidity, telling him they might actually work, that they might actually fit like this, like a possible family.

It sounds brilliant, that’s for sure.

Louis groans again as he twists around so that his back is up against the stall door. His stomach must’ve settled. Nick hopes it has. “It was the beef. The smell of it just made me…”

Be sick in a toilet, Nick finishes for him. “Does it happen a lot?”

Louis shrugs, “Yeah, sort of. I can’t stand chicken or pork and now beef, apparently,” Louis sighs sadly. “The thought of tomato sauce makes me want to hurl and those green smoothies that Harry’s obsessed with? I vomited in the sink last week, I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. It’s all,” he waves his hand around, wrinkles his nose, “either delicious or disgusting. No in between anymore.”

Nick can’t imagine that, even if he is a bit of a picky eater. From experience though, he’ll swallow mostly everything with a good enough incentive.

Quietly, a bit ashamed but powering through for the sake of them, this, whatever there is between them now, Nick admits, “I thought it was me.”

Louis frowns, but Nick doesn’t let him ask.

“When I asked you to move in, I thought that made you sick,” Nick is well aware how stupid it sounds, but it still has a bit of logic to it, at least to him it does. He probably looks a bit crazy.

Louis stares blankly at him for a second too long before he drags out, “You really are thick, aren’t you?”

Nick laughs at his bent knees. “Can be, yeah.”

“Well, I mean.” There’s another awkward silence that stretches between them. It lasts long enough for Nick to start to sweat again. Everything makes him sweat these days. “Why did you?” Louis ends up asking, like the perfectly normal, logic, rational human he seems to be.

 _To take care of you_ , Nick wants to say. _Because I want you close so I can watch you_. It all sounds a bit too stalker-ish to say out loud, even if it’s absolutely true. Nick wants Louis living in the palm of his hand, wrapped up in cotton and surrounded by fireproof metal walls. It's a strange feeling Nick isn't really familiar with, but he's pretty sure he wants to be the one to put those walls up around Louis.

Nick clears his throat and tells as much of the truth as he can. “If we're doing this together, then I guess,” he shrugs. Is living together the logical thing? Not that Nick's celebrated as a particularly logical person. “I guess I’d want us to live together too. I have a guest bedroom and no guests at the moment.”

Louis gives him one of his sideway glances where he's debating whether Nick is a regular old idiot or if he's actually thick. Nick doesn't think he is and by the way Louis nods, once, assertive and sure, he mustn't either. “I have to talk to Harry about it, but okay, maybe I'd be alright with that.”

/*/*/*/*/

“Milk, no sugar. Remember that or he'll be in a strop for the rest of the day. Oh, and you'll have to do his laundry. Lou forgets and he'll end up wearing your clothes, so it's better for you if you do,” Harry smiles at Nick like he's not describing Louis as a five year old helpless child. It's not that Nick minds, making the tea and cooking dinner and making sure Louis is taking all his vitamins, because that's just one more thing that Louis forgets to do - Nick's pretty sure Louis needs to get his head checked if he can't remember to do practically anything - it's just that he'd thought this would be a bit different is all.

Sure, what Nick had in mind was more slyly wooing Louis over dinners and glasses of wine, of getting to rub Louis feet while they had long talks late in the night. He may have forgotten about the bit where he doesn't know Louis, not really, not like Harry does anyway, not in the way that matters. Nick's just found out how he takes his tea, for fuck's sake. Milk, no sugar. Nick can handle that.

“Milk, no sugar, right.” Nick is still feeling side tracked by Harry practically jumping at the idea of Louis moving into Nick's and more importantly, away from Harry him. Those two are joined at the hip, half-brothers almost. It's not like Nick thought they were dating for nearly all of the first year he knew them. Even for the job interview Harry had, the first time he'd charmed his way into Nick's heart like the little affectionate worm Harry is, Louis was waiting outside the office for him. Harry got the job, of course he did, as so begin Nick's unsettling tendencies to pull on Louis’ proverbial pigtails. No one's ever made such a mess of Nick's head before or made him so desperate for another person. Usually its carbs Nick needs with the whole core of who he is, carbs and Louis.

But Harry is here, helping Louis unpack his things in the bedroom Nick only almost remodelled before today. It didn't feel right at first, for Louis, and then Nick started thinking about cribs and drafty windows and sketchy floorboards, and he's almost moved in the past week. Aimee had to talk him down. That came with a stern talking to about calling his mum, as well. Nick will. It's still just all a lot. Too much, really. Maybe now that Louis is here, Nick will finally settle into the idea of being a dad.

No, it still makes his heart race. _Christ._

“He goes to the bathroom every twenty seconds,” Harry nods towards the loo, “but it's a bit psychosomatic, you know. Lou read that he might need to pee more and now he pees more.”

“Right, of course, ha,” Nick says, not knowing what the bloody hell _psychosomatic_ means. Word of the day, that.

Though that first day is overwhelming as well as a romantic let down - Nick realizes he has no idea how to begin to woo someone, little less Louis - it's how it goes.

In the morning, Nick walks the dogs and goes to breakfast with whomever texts him first, because Louis likes to sleep in late and Nick knows about the waking sleeping babies thing. You don't, so he doesn't. Nick goes to work right about the time Louis usually gets up, which means Nick hands him his decaffeinated tea and leaves with a soft look at Louis’ back, letting him enjoy the rumpled state of his hair, the Superman motif of his pyjamas.

When Nick gets back in, Louis is at work, and when he comes back, it's with Harry trailing happily after him who is great, it's fantastic, and Nick loves Harry. He just wishes he'd bugger off, so Nick could be alone with Louis for a bit.

What becomes painfully, pathetically obvious, however, the first night Louis comes home looking tired and moody, and all alone with no Harry in sight, is that Nick has no idea what to do now that he has Louis by himself.

Nick wants to offer to make dinner, but without so much as a hello send his way; Louis is already stomping past a silent, confused Nick and to the kitchen.

It's a sight to see, really, Louis standing on the tips of his toes to peer into the cupboards above the counter and then bending over to look into the ones next to it. He's finding plates, glasses and the cleaning supply Nick has to keep hidden away from the dogs. Both of them are sitting and panting and looking at Louis. They're fascinated with him and they're not the only ones.

“Can I help you find something?”

“Yeah,” Louis huffs. “Food.”

Okay, Nick can do that, he thinks as Pig's tail starts wagging at the sound of the word 'food’. He can make Louis something to eat. “I could make you an omelette?”

Nick, per Louis’ instructions, because he refuses to go sit down on the couch and instead perches on the counter with his feet dangling in the air, scrambles up an omelette with the vegetables Louis signs off on, fries a handful of nuggets he didn’t know he had in the freezer and promises ice cream as dessert.

It’s all a bit more pleasant than even Nick hoped it would be, this whole living and hanging out with Louis without a pigeon toed buffer in the middle to mediate. When Nick asks Louis if he had a good day at work, Louis tells him, just like that, all normal and everything, without mentioning the state of Nick’s hair once.

Louis’ an assistant to the assistant to the assistant of some corporate head Nick’s never heard of.

“It wasn’t what I dreamed of doing, you can imagine,” Louis says, almost wistfully. His face is doing this thing Nick recognizes, but not on Louis. It’s wishful thinking, like the last dregs of hope Louis has are seeping out of his eyes as he looks up at Nick. “But a job’s a job, innit?”

“It is, yeah,” not that Nick would know anything about that, because just as he wished at age 11, he’s got his own show on the radio. Sure, it’s a local Manchester station with borderline worryingly low amount of listeners and the pay is just good enough that Nick’s managed to save up while living with roommates for most of his twenties to buy a house in Swinton right when he turned thirty. It’s tiny, barely has a backyard big for his pug to turn around in, but it’s his and Nick is more house proud than he has any right to. Louis said it’s nice though. That’s what counts in Nick’s books.

“I still haven’t told anyone…” Louis shrugs as he trails off, not that he needs to say _that I’m pregnant_ out loud. It’s something that hovers between them now, though every day it feels less and less like stale air and pure, tangible panic. It’s getting warmer and welcome with each minute that passes.

“I’ve read that we’re supposed to wait three months. You know, before we announce it.” Nick has been counting down the days, wondering if his family counts as something different. Maybe he really should call his mum.

“Are we? Announcing it?”

Nick shrugs. He hasn’t thought about anything official. Just calling up Eileen and giving her that heart attack she’s been saying Nick’s going to give her sooner or later. It is rather sooner than even Nick thought it would be. Making her a gran a third time around might just be worth it, Nick thinks. She’ll be happy. She has to be. Nick doesn’t know what he’d do if she wasn’t.

“Maybe not,” Louis murmurs, probably seeing Nick’s internal panic and taking it for something else than fear of his mum's wrath. Louis still needs to learn that that’s just how Nick is. He’s panics a lot. It’s in his blood.

“No, I want to. Let’s do that.” Nick’s thinking of his friends, how happy they would be. He wants that for himself and Louis. “Maybe we can have a few people round here for dinner.”

Louis’s assessing him again, but he nods surprisingly quickly. “I want my sisters here. Lottie and Félicité.”

“There’s like, twenty of you Tomlinson's, right?” Nick jokes and Louis, well, Louis actually chuckles - Nick is trying his hardest not to focus on the blush on his cheeks.

“Nah, Ernie and I are boys and then there are five girls. It’s not that many.”

Fast as anything, Nick imagines himself and Louis living in a house with seven children. _Seven_. It’s not something Nick’s ever thought of himself as. Sure, a dad. Nick had his hopes that he’d be a dad someday, never tried to hide it, even. But seven? He doesn’t think he could manage more than two. You can’t hold more than two at a time anyway, so what would he do with the other five?

“Seven is… it’s, yeah.”

“Can I, um,” Louis starts, looking down at his half eaten nuggets, but he must see Nick nod his way. Nick doesn’t think there’s anything Louis can’t ask him. There might be a few things Nick would be uncomfortable answering, but still, Louis can ask them. “If I wasn’t pregnant, would you still want a baby?”

And that’s. Well. “With you?” Nick asks, pretty damn sure his face is turning fifty different shades of red. Because Nick would, wouldn’t he? Even when with his question, the memory of Louis saying quite clearly 'not with you’ rings loud in Nick's ears. He wants to be sure they're past that, but he can't be one hundred percent, can he? Nick's just doing a lot of hoping lately.

“Doesn’t matter.” Louis shrugs. “With anyone.”

“I thought I’d be with the person,” Nick says honestly, because he had something less like a plan, but a bit more than a dream of having kids with that one person, the one he’d want to be with for a bit longer than a moon cycle. “Thought we’d live together, like each other enough to at least stay friends after, if something went wrong, right?” That’s the panicky bit, the part of him that is always, always worried that something will go wrong. “But,” Nick says a bit louder, because this is the part he thinks Louis wants to hear, “I’ve always wanted kids. Just,” he laughs a bit at himself, the way he sounds hopeless and desperate and just very much himself, “Always, yeah. And I don't mind that it's with you, really.” This might just be the understatement of the century, since Nick's started thinking of a wrinkly, pink baby with big, bright blue eyes.

It must be what Louis was getting at, there must have been a part of him worrying too, because he smiles at Nick and nods, like he’s giving Nick that seal of approval that Nick didn’t even know he needed.

It’s not all bad, this being alone with Louis Tomlinson thing. It really isn’t.

After Louis has eaten everything Nick put on his plate, Nick makes Louis sit down on the couch and pick a movie to watch. It’s Wednesday, but it doesn’t matter. Nick works the lunch slot and Louis more or less works in the afternoons. Nick isn’t quite sure what it is exactly that Louis does, but he figures they’ve got the time now to get to know each other.

“Is that…?” Nick is stuck mid-step, popcorn in one and two cans of coke in the other hand.

“ _Die Hard_ ,” Louis grins at him from the couch. He’s folded in on himself, one leg underneath his ass, the other pressed close to his chest. Nick wouldn’t think so before, but he’s pretty sure Louis’ a hugger. That’s information Nick doesn’t know what to do with. Well, Nick does know, he just isn’t sure if Louis would appreciate Nick snuggling up to him without preamble. Probably not. Definitely not, Nick remembers those sharp edges that must get a bit rounded off the later it is in the day and the more Louis grows tired, it seems.

Late nights with Louis might just be Nick’s best chance of wooing him.

So instead of pulling Louis right into his lap like he wants to, Nick sits close to him, nearly close enough that they’re touching, puts the popcorn bowl down between them, gives him one of the cans and settles in for the movie.

It’s an experience, watching _Die Hard_ with Louis. He’s full of comments and observations and loud bursts of laughter at presumably the funny bits, not that Nick would know. He isn’t really paying attention to John McClane and what he’s doing. Its Louis Nick can’t take his eyes away from.

About half an hour in, the popcorn is gone and apparently bothered by the bowl, Louis put in on the floor. Five minutes after that, he moves both his legs up on the couch. Another five and he turns towards Nick, his feet at the side of his thigh. Louis has little feet. That’s what Nick is thinking. Not how he wants to trail his fingers over the muscles in his calves and thighs. No. Nick is definitely not thinking about how strong Louis’ thighs are or how much stamina he has, because Nick would remember that if he was thinking about it. Louis’ stamina. How determined he is when he’s out to get what he wants, how Louis knows exactly what he wants and how hard he wants it.

Nick shivers and Louis looks over at him, raises his eyebrows.

“Getting a bit chilly,” Nick says, as if he isn’t starting to sweat underneath his half unbuttoned shirt. It’s just, when Nick thinks about it for more than half a second; he can’t believe Louis is sitting next to him in Nick’s house, his feet digging their place underneath Nick’s thigh like they are, actually pregnant, of all things. And with Nick on top of it all. A bit mad, that.

“Oi, what’re you doing?” Nick winces when Louis toe digs up into his thigh.

“My feet are cold.” Louis shrugs, not taking his eyes off the movie.

“There’s a blanket right there.” Nick must’ve gone crazy if he’s pointing that out instead of accepting the closeness Louis is clearly freely offering on a golden platter no less. It’s like Nick doesn’t love himself at all sometimes.

“I don’t want a blanket,” Louis says and wiggles his toes pointedly.

Fine, Nick thinks. Just fine.

Determined to fuck this all up and make Louis slap him around his head, Nick takes Louis’ ankles and pulls his feet up into his lap. He pulls the blanket from the back of the sofa and covers half of Louis’ legs with it, leaving his feet out at the end. And, with trembling hands and a stuttering heart that’s too hopeful sometimes, he starts rubbing Louis’ feet through his socks, pressing his fingers into the arched soles, because Nick has literally dreamed of doing this. He is living his actual dream.

There’s a moment when they’re both quiet, their eyes practically glued to the telly, though Nick suspects not even Louis is watching the movie anymore, before Louis hums and says, “That feels good,” all quiet and content.

If anyone asks Nick of his life’s achievements, he’s going to say he managed to make Louis Tomlinson sound content and it’ll be pretty high up on that list too.

That, half cuddles but not really, and Nick revelling in the fact Louis lets him so close to him, closer than Nick’s been in months, every other evening when Louis comes home without Harry trailing after him and they settle in to watch a movie, because it's a part of their routine now. Nick and Louis have a whole routine.

It’s nice as far as first steps in Nick’s grand wooing plan go. The problem is that Nick doesn’t know what the second step is, doesn’t know how to get even closer to Louis without spooking Louis away. It’s almost like Nick’s trying to approach a frightful doe.

The second step, in hindsight, should be to ask Louis is he wants Nick to make a second step in the first place. You live and you learn, Nick thinks, and there’s nothing like learning on first-hand experience, is there?

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

_New Year's party_

Louis’ goes to the patio. Or less patio and more like a piece of grass the dogs can have a wee on the mornings Nick can’t be bothered to take them on a walk. It works. For two people, there’s just enough space to sit on the couple of steps, pressed close together, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder, which works just as well, actually, now that Nick’s folding himself down next to Louis. It works perfectly.

“Who was the blonde?” Nick asks slurs a little and finds the pack of cigarettes he keeps in the bush pot. Lighting his own, he offers one to Louis and lights that one too. Smoking looks hot on him. Nick needs help.

“Don’t remember. Some guy,” Louis shrugs and takes a drag. The smoke whirls from his lips in a tight stream. Nick is about three seconds away from licking Louis’ face.

It’s with that thought that Nick makes himself say, “You could stay if you wanted to. Spend the night here.” The offer’s as smooth as he can make it in the state he’s in, which is to say, it’s not smooth at all. Nick really needs that glass of water.

Louis laughs around a drag. “I don’t do one night stands, Nicholas.”

Though Nick usually does, to be honest, he doesn’t want to this time. Maybe Nick’s gone senile in his old age, but he wants something more than a quick shag in a bathroom stall. Nick’s grown past kneeling on dirty, piss-stained floors and thank god for that. “Then stay the whole weekend,” Nick amends. “And then the one after that and the one after that.”

Nick is about to go on and on, but Louis gives him a quick glance. “And I don’t do drunken sex either.”

Hearing Louis say that word, _sex_ , even as offhandedly as he does, makes Nick twitch in his jeans. God, he wants Louis more than he’s probably wanted anyone before.

“If you want,” Louis starts to say as he puts out the cigarette and stands up. “I can get you some water.”

Nick smiles, but he feels himself blush. It’s less embarrassing than he’d have thought. “I do want,” Nick says, gets up as well and follows Louis back to the kitchen. For the water or just for Louis, Nick isn’t exactly sure.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

Louis is ten weeks pregnant. A whole ten weeks have past, though mostly in a blur of feet rubbing, cooking dinner, biting tongues to not shout on the radio that _Nick is going to be a dad and everyone should know he couldn’t be happier or sweatier_ , and Louis either revelling in the attention Nick is giving him or swatting him off and stomping to what’s now become his room over which Nick has no ownership anymore, if he didn’t know, because he signed that right away when he willingly invited Louis to live in it. And pouting or huffing about it isn’t going to help, Nicholas. Or so Nick’s been told.

Doctor _Barnett_ , that’s what her last name is, Nick now knows, tells them, officially, that Louis is indeed pregnant, if they had any doubts, not that they did. There’s a tiny, little swell to Louis’ stomach Nick’s noticed has been growing. It’s not like he’s hovering over Louis’ shoulder every moment of the day he can, looking and assessing him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, asking if he’s alright and meaning more with it than a bland ‘how are you’?. Except for how Nick is absolutely doing exactly that. He can’t help it.

Aimee’s said it’s normal. She did say that it’s normal for Nick, specifically, but that’s good enough in Nick’s book, so he hasn’t felt the need to stop.

And Nick’s pretty sure that even if Louis is putting up a bit of a fight some days, he isn’t minding the attention, not really. Not with the way he preens.

“How’s the morning sickness?” Barnett asks Louis while he gets comfortable on the exam table, hiking up his t-shirt. Nick hasn’t been told why he’s doing that, but he’s sure he’ll find out.

“Don’t know why they call it that,” Louis grunts, “since it’s an all day, everyday thing.”

“That bad?” The doctor chuckles and to Nick’s absolute shock, Louis is smiling at her. He’s pretty positive Louis would pinch Nick for saying something like that. But then Nick isn’t in charge of Louis’ birth, so that might be why.

“Not really. I just wish I could eat a burger again.”

“It should pass soon,” she assures them, Louis probably more than Nick. “Now. Ready to hear the heartbeat?”

“The…” _God._ Nick didn’t know that was happening today. This is ridiculous, because he’s read the books, knows that today is their first antenatal check-up, which means that they hear the heartbeat, that he can officially yell it over radio, that he’s going to be a dad. Nick knows that next time; they’ll talk about the birth plan, though Nick still doesn’t know exactly what that is, but still. He knew, yet it still takes him by surprise for some reason.

Doctor Barnett squirts a blueish gel on Louis tiny swell and starts poking about with her magic stick, clicking and tapping on the ultrasound machine until, well, until Nick stops breathing and Louis does too, just so they can hear the faint _thump, thump_ coming from inside Louis.

Nick’s read somewhere, because all he does nowadays is read about babies and pregnancies in hopes he’ll remember some of it for when it matters, that the half of the couple who isn’t pregnant feels that innate overwhelming feeling of creating a life when they see it, since it doesn’t grow inside of them like it is in Louis. They realize that this is it, their baby, a smidgen of them they’re leaving behind in the world only once they see it and hold the baby in their own hands. The books said that’s how the majority of all this goes.

But Nick’s rarely followed the majority of anything, hasn’t he? So it’s no wonder, really, that his eyes get all wet and his nose fills up about a second after he hears the heartbeat, because that’s it, that’s his _baby_ , his baby’s _heart_ , beating and loud and _fuck_. Nick can’t breathe.

But then the doctor says, “In about five or six weeks’ time, for your next appointment, you’ll be able to find out the gender, if you want.” And not only can Nick feel his lungs collapse with the sheer panic and fucking excitement, but his legs get wobbly and unstable and really, there should be a chair.

There is, Nick finds when he turns around and promptly collapses down into it.

 _Shit. Christ, shit_ , that’s the sound of his baby, of their baby, Louis’ and Nick’s, growing and alive and his or hers little heart beating away.

Nick looks over to Louis, who already has his eyes trained on Nick. He wanted to ask something, if Louis’ okay, if he’s happy, but the look in his wide eyes, wet around the edges and the smile that’s spreading over his face like a slow, steady rise of something great, tell Nick’s everything he’d want to know.

This is it. They’re really doing it. It might’ve been an unexpected accident, but they’re here and, to a degree, they’re together.

Nick smiles back at Louis, hiding the panic as best as he can, because this is not the time, Nicholas, Nick hears even if Louis doesn’t say it. It’s small though, the panic, settled a bit, as the sound of their baby’s heart still thumps from the ultrasound.

They schedule the next appointment the second week of April and get sent home with another leaflet of all the vitamins Louis needs to take, a folder with everything they need to know about birth plans - Nick’s researching those as soon as he gets to a computer - and Louis gets some advice on morning sickness while Nick stands next to him, itching to put his hand on the small of Louis’ back.

Nick needs to think of that second step, and he needs to think of it fast, or else he’ll sweat through all his shirts and bite all his nails clean off.

/*/*/*/*/

Nick comes up with a plan. It’s, well, it needs a bit of finesse and has plenty of room for improvement, but he thinks he’s got it.

The next time he’s in the kitchen, making a cheesy lasagne while Louis is sat on the counter in a pair of comfortable joggers and a low necked t-shirt that’s been giving Nick ideas about biting Louis’ collarbones since he put it on, Nick says, “I was thinking we could go out to eat tomorrow,” while putting another layer of fresh pasta in the pan. “I’ve been craving some greasy Chinese for a while, if you’re up for it. Like a date.” Steady, Nick thinks to himself. Be steady. “Or maybe that pizza place that you liked last time.”

Last time, it was Nick and Louis taking Harry and Zayn, and  Aimee and Ian to dinner to officially tell them they’re pregnant - or that Louis is but that Nick had a hand in it happening, whatever, semantics. Their friends pretended like they didn’t know, and Nick and Louis pretended like they don’t both live for attention. It was fun.

The curious look Louis is giving him right now? Not so much fun as it’s making Nick want to swallow his own tongue.

“We can go wherever, really,” Nick mumbles, focusing back on the lasagne, because if he doesn’t, his heart will explode in expectations that Nick always manages to get too high.

He doesn’t understand why he always mucks everything up. He could’ve enjoyed this, just making dinner for them every other night, the movies, the feet and back massages they’ve graduated to, not that Louis’ back is achy or anything, not yet, Louis just likes them and Nick can’t say what Louis sitting between his thighs makes him feel. He can’t word it correctly. _It’s a lot_ is as far as Nick’s managed to come.

Right when Nick is about to retract his half-assed offer, Louis finally asks, “As a date?” all quiet and raspy, though he doesn’t sound appalled. Which is something?

Nick shrugs. “Yeah. Thought we’d give it a try.” He actually _should_ swallow his tongue, so he couldn’t talk nonsense anymore. Give it a try? Pathetic. He’s wanted to take Louis on a date since forever. It’s just that now that they’re having a child together, it seemed like a good idea to ask. Might not have been, the jury’s still out.

He doesn’t watch Louis, trying instead to drown the layers of pasta and sauce in cheese, so Nick doesn’t know what Louis’ face is doing when he says, “Sure. We can give it a try.”

Nick exhales. It’s a deep, constipated breath that’s been stuck in his throat, heavy and meaningful, mostly full of relief.

“Great,” he says, nearly sighs, still looking down at the pan. He can’t look at Louis right now, Nick rather wouldn’t. “That’s great.”

“Chinese actually sounds good, though if I get sick, I’ll blame you, you should know.”

“Perfectly okay with me,” Nick says, not adding that as long as Louis goes on a date with him, Nick is willing to suffer all and every consequence.

That settled, he puts the lasagne into the oven, sets the timer and starts cleaning up. Nick doesn’t notice that Louis stays and watches him for the forty minutes it takes for the timer to go off.

/*/*/*/*/

“Feeling alright?” Louis asks, like Nick is sure he should be asking Louis, because it was Louis who ate two plates full of greasy Chinese food on a sensitive, pregnant, morning sickness-riddled stomach. But then it’s Nick who literally gasped - not one of his most proudest moments - when Louis took his hand when they stepped out of the restaurant and started walking back home.

Not wanting to lie or to down play it, Nick says, “Perfect,” around a content, deeply satisfied grin.

The dinner was pleasant, filled with bits of awkward silences, less awkward small talk and actual good conversation about their families, their work and everything in between.

They both fell silent when Louis’ mom and Nick’s dad came up, but Louis livened up when he started talking about his sisters, their names, their school-work and Lottie’s job making him look about three meters higher than he is with pride. Nick rambled about his work, throwing pieces of the classic Styles idiocy that comes with his regular work day, like Harry trying to make their whole production team go on a juice cleanse without anticipating the actual, physical cleanse of it clogging the office toilets for the next three days.

Louis explained that his job is setting up appointments, organizing meetings, fetching coffees and ghost-writing articles in his boss’s name, because he took English Lit in university for two years. Nick’s mind was a little bit blown by that. Less, when Louis said it wasn’t ever what he wanted to do with his life. He thought he’d be a teacher, have a drama club on the side, that’s why he went to study the most Shakespearean degree he could think of. Turns out, he doesn’t much like to read. That was more something Nick expected.

It really had been pleasant. All around. Even discussing the birth plan Nick’s done a bit of research on. Talking C-sections over a pot of fried chicken and sticky rice is a lot less traumatic when it has to do with your own baby. Neither one of them had been phased about it. The waiters on the other hand… Nick’s surprised no one came up to them and asked to keep it down when they started talking about the afterbirth and how happy they were they get to avoid it. Both of them.

But now that they’re holding hands, Louis’ smaller ones wrapped around Nick’s bony fingers, Nick’s reminded again that this wasn’t just a regular old dinner, that they didn’t just go out to eat because Nick didn’t feel like cooking tonight.

It’s a date. Nick’s on a date with Louis.

“You think we’ll do this again?” Nick asks, self-conscious as he is, but he’d rather know now if he shouldn’t be getting his hopes up. Not that they aren’t already. So fucking high, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Louis brings them down. Cry, probably. Drink him silly, definitely.

“Eat?” Louis asks as he gives him a quick, smirking glance. He squeezes Nick’s hand once before he says, “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Nick exhales again. He’s been doing that a lot lately.

“But,” Louis goes on again and the breath leaving Nick’s lungs gets pinched off in half. “I need to ask you something.”

“Sure,” Nick rasps out. _God_. Louis’ breaking up with him, isn’t he?  However that’d be mad, because it’s not like they’re together. Or maybe they are. Are they? _God._

Louis takes the breath Nick’s lost and says, “I don’t want you to feel like you have to date me. I don’t want a date out of pity, alright? So just, don’t, if that’s why you’re doing this,” all in one, harsh, go.

Nick stops walking and since they’re still holding hands, stops Louis right along with him. He just can’t be doing two things at once, right now, because Nick can’t believe Louis thinks that and it’s taking all his energy to make sense of it.

“I wouldn’t-” Nick starts shaking his head. “No. I like you. You do know that, right?”

Louis shrugs, looking down at their feet.

“Like a lot. I mean…” And now Nick’s made himself blush. This is why he doesn’t do relationships in the first place. It’s just too damn hard, all the talking about his feelings that comes with it. “You said you’d text when you left,” Nick doesn’t say at New Years. They both know well enough. “I thought you would. I waited for a bit, but,” Nick wants to say he didn’t have Louis’ number, because it would be weird if he did, since he may or may not have stolen if from Harry's phone. And he didn't want to call, because Nick didn't want to be the one to ask if… If Louis was disappointed with what he’d found. If Nick wasn’t what Louis wanted. If it was okay for that one stupid, reckless, drunk night and lazy, glorious morning Nick hasn’t forgotten yet, but it wasn’t later, when Louis was sober and back to his senses. Nick has to shake his head again and say, “I like you,” and just stick with that or else he’ll tell Louis everything that’s been going around in his head and neither of them want that to happen.

“Oh. Okay.” Louis says, though his voice raises enough for it to be a question. “Well. I like you too.”

That makes Nick’s chest swell with something, something warm and lovely. More of that hope, probably. “Well then. Should we do this again?” Nick just has to ask again. Just to be sure.

Louis smiles, it’s weak and unsure, but it’s there and that’s what counts. They’ll talk more about this, about Nick’s insecurities in him and Louis’ insecurities in Nick; they know they can hold an hour long conversation now they’ve done it once.

“Yeah. Yeah, we should.”

For about a fraction of a millisecond, Nick thinks Louis is going to kiss him. There’s a look in his eyes and he even leans forward just that little bit, but it doesn’t come. Louis squeezes his hand again and they start walking back to Nick’s house.

They’ll talk. Sooner or later, they’ll have to.

/*/*/*/*/

They never get around to having that talk.

Everything stays pretty much the same, except for how it all changes as well.

One night when Nick gets home after Louis for a change, because Pixie and Alexa were claiming Nick had been putting their friendship on the back burner, he goes and gets a bit drunk, more like tipsy with them at their regular karaoke pub. It’s more fun than Nick’s had in a while. He doesn’t know if it’s wrong, but he doesn’t think about Louis’ ever-growing belly once. Or, Nick doesn’t think about it more than every five minutes. This is an immense improvement he only feels a little guilty about.

When Nick gets home, stumbling through the door at half past ten like the wild party animal he isn’t anymore, drunk on half a bottle of wine, Louis greets him with his arms crossed, a scowl and a sharp, “Where have you been?”

Weirdly, it’s a good look on Louis, this stern concern that makes Nick smile wide and bright.

“Went singing,” Nick chirps as he kicks off his trainers. “Voice of an angel, me. Michelangelo would make statues of me, he would.”

“I’m sure he would,” Louis mumbles, but Nick hears it still. For some reason, Louis doesn’t sound happy.

And then Nick looks at him, really looks at him, the whole scowl and crossed arms and fuzzy socks on his feet, flannel pyjama bottoms and what Nick is ninety-seven percent sure is his own t-shirt. Nick heart actually melts at the sight.

“Were you worried?”

“Of course I was worried, you giant knobhead!” Louis throws his arms out. “You weren’t home when I came in and it’s eleven at night! You didn’t even leave a message, Nick!” With a more contained voice, like he’s trying to gather some control, Louis adds, “Thought the flying ninjas got you.”

Here comes the daily urge to hug Louis, Nick thinks. It’s getting stronger, this primal need to make sure Louis is as happy as he possibly can be.

“I’m sorry,” Nick says without having to think about it. “Alexa and Pix called and I didn’t think.” Nick really didn’t think Louis would stay up waiting for him to come home. It’s never happened before, not that there’s been a need to. Nick really hasn’t been out in about forever. Or at least since New Year’s. So, really, forever.

“I know you didn’t. Knobhead,” Louis says again before he stomps back to the living room. Expectedly, Nick follows right after him.

The sofa is a mess. There are at least a handful of _Snickers_ wrappers on the pillow and the bowl they’ve dedicated specially to popcorn is on the floor next to the sofa where Louis’ made a comfortable nest out of the blinkers for himself. It’s a weird thought that, having a bowl just for popcorn. It’s weirder to think it’s both Nick’s and Louis’. Equally. Both of theirs.

Nick needs to drink some water.

Before he sits down, he pads to the kitchen and drink half a bottle. When Nick comes back, he plops himself as elegantly as he can next to Louis, puts his hands in his lap and thinks of how he can make this better.

That’s another thing. Nick’s realized that his life isn’t just his anymore. It’s as much Louis’ as it’s theirs baby’s, and on days like today, when his friends pull him away for a few hours, Nick forgets that. He didn’t even think of letting Louis know he’d be out late.

“I’m sorry for making you worry,” Nick says, because it’s good to apologize to Louis. Nick’s learned that in the time they’ve been living together. Louis likes apologies.

“Yeah, well, a call next time would be nice.” The violent flipping through the channels on the telly tells Nick not all is forgiven.

And then Nick thinks how much he needed tonight, to be away from the house and the baby books and the panic that is ever-present in his mind now. And he thinks about Louis, how he was still stuck in the house with the books and the worries and the dogs that are weirdly enough nowhere to be seen, and the panic of if he can handle to raise a child. Maybe that’s just Nick, but something similar has to be going through Louis’ head as well.

So Nick says, “We should go out next weekend. Does something fun,” which finally gets Louis to put down the remote and look at him!

“I can’t drink though.”

It sounds disappointed. Nick would be too. He bumps his shoulder against Louis’ and says, “I’ll drink for both of us. All three of us,” he adds quietly, though it’s still a surreal thought.

“The hell you will,” Louis quips, but he laughs too, which is what Nick wanted, it’s what he always wants now. Louis being happy.

“Alright, I won’t, but we’re still going out.”

“We could invite Harry and Zayn.”

“We can invite everybody, go to a pub or something,” Nick’s already thinking of possible places. They both need a night with other people around them, not just themselves. Not that Nick would trade Louis for any of his friends.

“That’d be nice,” Louis sighs and then easy as anything, he leans his head on Nick’s shoulder. His hand, gentle as anything, comes up to his stomach and normal, or not, the sight nearly makes Nick cry.

Louis’ at nearly full four months of the pregnancy. They have their next appointment in two weeks, and then another five months, and that’ll be it, their little pink, wrinkly baby will be all theirs to hold and to feed and to put down for naps. Do babies do anything else than that? Nick needs more books.

“Do you feel it yet?” He asks tentatively, but he can’t keep his eyes away from Louis’ hand, just resting there on that part of him that’s growing.

“No,” Louis sighs, turns a bit more into Nick. “Do you want to?” He gestures down on himself, moves his hand half to the side. God, but Nick does. His eyes get wet. Nick’s eyes have been getting wet around the edges for the stupidest reasons lately. Pig and Stinky were both so good on their walks this morning, that half way back home, Nick broke down and hugged them close to his chest, promising them both all the treats they wanted. They’re probably still sleeping the food off, that’s why there were no nails scratching on his hardwood when he came in.

Slowly, because Louis is still a bit of a frightened doe, Nick gets first his fingers and then his palm right on top of that swell he’s been eyeing for weeks now.

It feels smaller than he’d thought it would. More like Louis’ stomach has gone all tense and stiff than soft and round like Nick’s imagined.

“Does it hurt?” Nick asks out of nowhere, the words slipping past his lips without even thinking.

“Not anymore, no.”

Nick goes stiff from top to bottom. “It hurt? Why didn’t you say?”

“Calm your tits, Grimshaw,” Louis laughs. “It didn’t properly hurt; just had some cramps and whatnot at the beginning, but Harry said it was normal, so I didn’t make a fuss.”

Nick doesn’t say what he thinks of Harry in the moment, because he isn’t going to be petty and mean, but it does sting a little, the thought of Louis and Nick not doing this together. Nick doesn’t like it, the possibility of it, and the chances until only recently still too high for his liking. Now it’s at a manageable level, that feeling of being left. Nick can handle this.

“I want to be there,” Nick murmurs. “For everything. All of it. I don’t want to miss any more things.”

“You’re not,” Louis sounds strangely sure. “We’re both here.”

Nick doesn’t know if he means them, or if Louis means himself and the baby. Nick doesn’t care, because both work for him.

“We’re getting soppy,” Nick chuckles idiotically, as he does most things in life, but he can’t get over the feeling of Louis’ bump. Is it theirs? Maybe not, Nick wouldn’t want to imply that Louis the idea that he’s needy or desperate even if Nick is needy and desperate.

Right now, for instance, he just want to turn Louis’ head a bit more to himself, run his nose right along the hinge of Louis’ sharp jaw, breathe him in and then kiss him.

When Louis whispers a quiet and weak sounding, “ _You_ are,” Nick really can’t help himself any longer.

He remembers the nights he spent with Harry, Louis and whoever they went out with, just because he wanted to hang out with Louis without Louis knowing. Harry didn’t call Nick pathetic once, even when he was more than, as well as an extra amount of stupid for not doing anything about it. New Year’s, that was Nick’s night of finally getting what he’d craved for so long, except it didn’t quench anything, like he thought it would. Nothing.

Nick just wanted Louis more than before.

It was a bit of a lie, what he’s told Louis. Of course Nick has Louis’ number, saved under _prettiest git_ and everything. And Nick’s hovered over the name a few nights during January, when Louis mustn’t have known he was pregnant even, and wished he had the balls to just call or text. Neither metaphorically or literally, Nick’s never been particularly gifted in that area though, so he’d hovered and hoped and harassed poor Harry who took it all with what Nick always thought was a too knowing smile.

There was hope, Nick thinks. That’s why Harry was smiling, because he knew there was still hope for poor old Nicholas.

With his hand still steady on Louis’ belly, Nick turns his own head, bumps his nose against Louis’ cheek and asks as steadily as he can, “Can I kiss you?”

Humming and nodding and moving right along with Nick, Louis says a quick, “Yeah,” before their lips meet and they’re kissing and it’s exactly like Nick remembers.

Louis’ lips are thin and soft, and he kisses so carefully and slowly, nothing like what Louis _is_ and this is exactly what Nick wants to be doing for the rest of his life. And isn’t that a thought.

“Fuck,” Louis groans against Nick’s mouth as he tries to pull him closer, but changes his mind in the middle of manhandling Nick who is bigger and heavier than he is, so of course it doesn’t work, and climbs into Nick’s lap instead. Just like that, like Nick’s heart isn’t beating out of his bloody chest with how close they are all of a sudden.

Practically chest to chest, Louis’ arse sitting comfortably right over Nick’s crotch, so Louis must feel how hard Nick is getting just from one simple kiss. Though it’s not really simple, is it? Not that Nick can think with Louis squirming against him and biting his lip and whining, _whining_ against his mouth.

“Do you want me to…?” Nick asks carefully, with the last of his comprehension. But he understands when Louis nods, whimpers and grabs the elastic of his pyjamas, pulling them down a bit, and god. This is actually happening. This is it; this is how Nick dies, happy and hard with Louis in his lap. All in all, it’s a great way to go.

For a second, Nick wonders what to do. It’s like he’s back to being eighteen at university with no idea what goes where and how things are supposed to look or work. It’s like Nick is a blushing virgin and he’s as excited as he is petrified out of his bloody mind.

And then he makes up his mind. Nick kisses Louis again, a bit harder, puts more force into it and even grabs his hips - though he still keeps his grip nice and gentle. He gets Louis’ pyjamas down over his eyes, tries not to short circuit when he sees Louis’ isn’t wearing pants, and then without so much as a glance at Louis’ prick - Nick doesn’t want to come too soon - he gets himself out of his too goddamn tight jeans. Nothing but joggers from now on, Nick thinks as he reaches for the lube he has stashed in the drawer next to the couch.

“Slag,” Louis says with a bite at Nick’s jaw.

“Just prepared,” Nick snips back. God, Louis is so responsive with how he squirms and writhes and moans against Nick. He wants to get Louis naked and on his bed again, stretched out in that long beautiful curve of his body again, admire and taste and bite and trail his fingers over every inch of his skin. He wonders if Louis would let him.

For now, Nick gets his hand slick with lube before he throws the bottle to the floor without a second thought and wraps his hand first around himself, getting his prick nice and wet just like Nick likes it and then with an expectant breath, he tips Louis’ cock closer and _fucking shit_ , they both groan.

It’s messy, dirty with how much lube Nick’s used and how it drips down all over Nick’s thighs, but he doesn’t care. He’ll throw the stupid jeans in the trash for all Nick cares, as long as he can watch the way Louis closes his eyes when their pricks touch and them slide together, Nick pushing his hips up tentatively, feeling it out, and keeping his eyes on Louis.

But Christ, Louis is beautiful like this, when he isn’t trying to control everything around him and just lets fucking go for once, his back arching away while his legs press close to Nick’s, thighs caging him in with their power. It’s not hard to imagine Louis riding him like this, fast and urgent, on the sofa while the dogs are already asleep. When Nick adds the image of their baby asleep in their room too, his heart grows twice its size.

“Nick, Nick,” Louis pants, throws his head back with another lovely moan when Nick tightens his hand around them, keeps it close to the heads of their pricks and puts some muscle into it, fastens the pace of it. “Shit, Nick, I’m going to come,” Louis slumps forward, and with their foreheads pressed together and Nick’s eyes steady on how well their pricks fit together - as weird as it sounds - Louis shudders and comes on a broken little whine Nick remembers hearing months and months ago.

Nick’s jeans get even messier but as long as Louis keeps moving and chasing that high Nick is giving him, he doesn’t care. Even when he does, Nick wraps his hand tight around his cock and jerks himself off to the sight of a spent Louis Tomlinson still in his lap until he comes, Nick can’t bring himself to care.

It’s all just so fucking perfect, it’s almost a bit too much. But that’s usually how things are for Nick.

Louis bumps his fingers against Nick’s stomach to bring his focus back up from their spent pricks. He’s smiling, this small, pretty thing playing in his eyes. They're so blue, this bright, sparkly colour. “That was good.”

Nick scoffs.

“Fine, it was bloody amazing.”

Nick’s smile starting to grow too. “Better,” he says and with the courage he feels pumping through him in the moment, he leans forward and kisses Louis again.

Louis lets him, kisses back even, and actually follows Nick’s mouth as he leans back.

And slumped together like this, with most of Louis’ weight pressing comfortably on his chest and finally, finally, with a hand on the small of Louis back, Nick says, “Come to my bed tonight,” because it just feels right.

If they’re doing this, if that’s what they want - and oh god, Nick does, so much, please - then Nick wants Louis in his bed with the dogs in their own plusher plush in the corner of the room. And for now, at least, Nick doesn’t think where the crib would go. He just kisses Louis’ temple and wonders if anything’s ever felt like this, like Nick doesn’t need to panic, because everything will turn out alright.

When Louis nods with his head tucked into Nick’s neck, still so very soft against him, all sharp edges tucked away for the night, Nick decides that everything will just have to be okay, one way or another, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if it isn’t.

/*/*/*/*/

When Louis is four months and two weeks pregnant, on the morning when they both wake up moody and a bit mean, really, what with Nick refusing to make Louis tea and Louis hiding Nick’s toothbrush until Nick threatens to kiss him anyway, morning breath and all, they have another doctor’s appointment.

Louis has been hungry since he ate breakfast, not that that’s particularly unusual, and Nick has been weirdly nauseated since he’s skipped his, almost like he’s nervous for some reason. But he isn’t. Nick is a rock, a solid boulder for Louis and for himself, because they clearly need someone to lean on - or rather, they need someone, so Louis can aim his hunger-anger on them and Nick is more than willing to be the victim of it.

Nick can’t seem to stay angry at Louis for too long these days. It’s probably natural instinct or something as equally ridiculous, to protect the person who’s carrying your baby. It makes perfect sense to Nick, anyway, because he isn’t usually one to get up in the middle of the night just because someone’s woken up craving ice cream. It’s still a bit of a warm, fuzzy surprise in the mornings that, waking up next to a still sleeping Louis.

He pouts in his sleep. And his hair goes all frizzy against Nick’s pillow. It’s probably the best thing Nick’s ever seen. Still, Nick can’t get used to that. It just feels like he’s won the lotto or something.

When Louis gets up on the exam table and hikes his t-shirt up a little, the swell now a bit more than just faint, Nick is already pulling the chair closer so he can sit from the get go this time. He isn’t making a rookie mistake and standing like last time. No sir.

Doctor Barnett asks them all the usual, “How are you feeling? Any pain? Indigestion? How’s your appetite?” questions, but they both only half listen and answer to her, because today is the day they found out if Nick’s been right about their baby Pink, if there’s actually a Daffodil in there.

It’s an open topic in the house now, baby names. After about a week of vetoing each other names, Nick gets how veto can start to sound appealing. Louis thinks Nick’s gone mad. He isn’t wrong.

She pokes around a bit with her magic stick, pointing out the round head Nick can see, the hand and little tiny feet right there, floating about in Louis’ belly. Just seeing their baby like this and Nick has to take Louis’ hand because, well, it’s a lot, isn’t it. Seeing your baby is more than a peanut. It’s a proper baby now. Properly theirs, as well.

Great, Nick’s eyes are already wet.

The doctor looks over at them and gives them a wide smile. “You sure you want to know?”

“Yes, yes, we’re sure,” Louis rushes her, antsy as he is, “Just tell us, come on.” Nick squeezes his hand, offers him a bit of some excited comfort.

“Well,” Doctor Barnett smiles at screen, “Congratulations boys, you’re having a baby girl.”

Nick’s heart? It really does stop this time. Just flats out. There’s even that sound you hear in the movies when a patient dies in a hospital, that one-note thing. It’s ringing so loud in Nick’s ears, he’s sure he’s going to go deaf from it.

A girl. _Shit_ , but he never imagined it was really a girl. His baby girl Pink. All wrinkly and pink and _a girl_. Frilly and fragile and barely resembling a blob at this point, just a blobby blob of a girl. And she’s all theirs. _Christ_.

Nick can’t help it. He hides his face in their intertwined hands and cries his happy heart out. Louis sniffles, calls him pathetic and says, “You’re acting like a child, Nicholas,” but his voice is all raspy and wet, so they’re both already the pathetically soppy dads they were bound to be.

A _girl_.

For how tough Louis was acting in front of the doctor, even asking some questions and getting their appointment scheduled with Marjorie while Nick stood there and kept on crying as quietly as he could and smiling along like a complete idiot, Louis ends up crying as soon as they get buckled in in Nick’s car.

Nick grabs Louis’ hand quick as anything, says something like, “I’m so happy, so, so happy,” kisses Louis’ temple, right above his ear and pretends like he isn’t still crying as well. They’re just two very emotional, excited adults. And one of them is bursting with hormones, so really, it’s what they expected.

When they get back home, Louis plops down on the couch, still wet eyed and Nick sits down next to him, so they’re pressed together from thigh to shoulder. He doesn’t know what to do now.

Nick will be a boulder no problem, but he’s a sometimes nervous boulder, who doesn’t know exactly where the line is between okay and too close, and right now, though they’re not nearly close enough, it’s like he’s already crossing a line being this close. Nick knows that even with their new found sleeping in the same bed together, the occasional shared orgasm that leaves them both non-functioning for the next half hour at least and pretty much spending every single night together, tucking somewhere inside the house, Louis still likes his alone time.

And Nick does too.

There are days when Louis’ is up with the sun and Nick, getting ready along with Nick, maybe even talking the dogs on their morning wee while Nick whips them up something to eat and two mugs of tea, milk, no sugar. And then he’s gone all day, god knows where. Maybe at work, probably with his friends, definitely with Harry. Nick gets text updates.

And Nick likes to stay out after work some nights. Catch up with Aimee and Pix, but sooner or later one or both of them shoo them back to Louis, who will be waiting up for him on the sofa with a stupid action movie and at least a handful of popcorn lets in the bowl.

All in all, Nick doesn’t want to change a thing.

He wants to be a brave boulder though, someone who can be there for his Pink and for Louis, who’s a little bit his as well. Just as much as it makes Nick the other dad. Which is pretty bloody his, actually. Fuck it, Nick thinks as he says, “Come on, there you go,” and manoeuvres Louis slowly across his lap one evening after they’ve just settled on the sofa, being slow with it so Louis has the time to kick out if he wants to, but he must not, because he buries his face into Nick’s arm and sighs contentedly.

That sound still makes Nick’s chest ache. Because most times Nick still has trouble believing it, he says, “We’re having a girl,” into the top of Louis’ hair quietly enough that Louis might not hear.

After about half the movie rolls past their eyes, Nick tugs them both to their feet and half carries Louis to the bedroom. He helps him out of his joggers and into his superman pyjamas, gets himself ready, which is to say, Nick strips down to his pants, and pulls Louis close to him underneath the duvet.

Laying this close, in the warmth of their bedroom, with Pig’s snores the only sound to lull them to sleep, Nick thinks about telling Louis how much his heart has grown in the past few months. Expanded, really, just about enough to fit one Louis Tomlinson inside. Well, and their baby girl.

Usually though, with a still content sigh and a soft, “Good night,” and a kiss to the top of Louis’ head, Nick falls asleep.

/*/*/*/*/

Months five, six and nearly all of seven slip past Nick without him even knowing. One moment it’s May and he touched Louis’ belly once a week, not more, just as a progress report of sort and to suggest a few more names.

“Daisy,” Nick says one morning, lying on his side with Louis on his back, pretending to still be asleep and bothered by Nick tracing hearts over his skin. He isn’t, Louis never is anymore.

“Like your friend?”

Which is a valid point, but, “Think of it thought. We make her godmother as well and we’re all set for a babysitter. Daisy couldn’t say any us. Right? Am I the smartest person on the planet, or what?” Nick asks the bump, clearly bigger than it was just a week ago.

Their baby is growing and she’s growing fast. Nick couldn’t be more excited for her to finally get here, so he can cold her and talk to her and teach her all about what songs are worth listening to. Should he start with Beyoncé or Rihanna, that’s the question?

“Absolutely not,” Louis quips, fast as anything, and then rolls to his side and buries his face in Nick’s chest. It doesn’t make Nick want to scream with fucking disbelief that this is actually his life anymore, which is obvious character growth, if he does say so himself.

He cards his fingers through Louis’ soft hair for five more minutes and then it’s with a kiss on his forehead that Nick goes to work, because Louis lets him do that now. He lets Nick hold him during the night, he doesn't complain about the somewhat, not-really early mornings Nick has and Louis lets Nick kiss him however much he wants, which is a lot, granted, but Louis doesn't complain one bit.

The next moment, it’s the end of June and they’re more than half way through it.

They still don't have a name. Nick puts his foot down and calls her Pink out loud, even when scowls or frowns and pinches his thigh. Nick doesn't care. He wants her to have a name, because Nick wants to call her it when he's talking to her.

That's another thing that starts happening. Nick talks to his baby Pink now, tells her about himself, about Louis, sometimes the dogs when they're around and then Eileen, the night before she comes for a visit.

It's not so much that either of them invites her, Eileen just gets on the bus and comes right over one Friday evening and stays until Sunday. She cooks, she cleans and she takes care if Louis, so that by the end of the weekend, Nick feels clueless and useless. It's marvellous, sort of like a holiday in his own house.

Eileen and Louis get along, at least, but then they would, bonding over calling Nick stupid. Still, Nick loves his mum and he thinks Louis likes having a mother hen fussing over him like she is, tucking pillows behind his back, making him vitamin and iron rich food, talking about babies as if her youngest isn't thirty years old and standing right there.

And then, all of a sudden, Louis is at month seven, nearly eight really, when Nick has a bloody heart attack at four in the morning. It's not another one of those times when Louis wakes him up while he goes to the bathroom for a wee, saying he's being loud in solidarity, Nicholas, “You got me up the duff, so you'll wake up when I wake up, because the baby woke me up by jumping on my bladder.”

It's fine, Nick thinks, except the usual pinch is a bump at his side and then a hand on his face, palm crushing his nose, actually, and there's no way Nick can sleep through that.

“Wake _up_ or you'll miss it, Nick. Nick. _Nick_!”

“What, what's happening?” Nick sits up and immediately gets dizzy. _Shit_. “What's wrong?” he manages to ask, with his face in his hands, trying to focus, “Are you hurt? Where’re the dogs? Pig!”

That, at least, gets Nick a sleepy groan from somewhere on the floor. Good, Pig's fine. But when Nick turns to Louis to tell him he's being ridiculous, that the dogs are fine, _obviously_ , he has another heart attack.

Louis is sitting further down on the bed, legs spread, hands on his stomach and his eyes down as well.

Shaky as he feels, Nick asks, “Is it happening? Is this it?” It shouldn't be, not for another two months. It's too soon, Nick thinks. _God_ , it's too fucking soon.

“Nick,” Louis rasps back. “Come here.”

He shuffles down the bed, sitting at Louis’ side with his legs folded underneath him. Nick feels so small and helpless. What is he supposed to do now? Baby Pink will be so tiny if she comes today, too tiny.

“Lou…”

“Give me your hand, Nick.”

Nick does, without thinking or questioning or doubting - Nick realizes he trusts Louis pretty bloody unconditionally, as it seems - he gives Louis his hand, which in the next moment, is placed against Louis’ belly and then, oh. _Oh_.

“Is she?”

“Playing football already? Yeah,” Louis sighs, and because he looks it as well, tired and slightly uncomfortable sitting up like he is Nick manoeuvres his long limbs around his, so that Louis can lean back against Nick's chest and Nick can still keep his hands right where baby Pink is kicking. Nick can feel her. She's right there.

He never imagined this was going to be his life, not even in his wildest dream, did Nick think he'd have a boy sitting between his legs with their girl in his belly on a bloody early Thursday morning, feeling happy and excited and nervous all at once.

And then, as Louis turns his head and Nick goes to kiss him without even thinking, he sees the drops of red spilling from Louis’ nose. “You've got,” Nick starts to say, but no, that's blood, shit, that is definitely blood. “Your nose is bleeding.”

It's stupid to say it like that, but Nick is running out of brain capacity at the moment, so he's stating the obvious like he's saying water is wet. Which it is, of course, but it doesn't freak him the fuck out.

“Oh, shit, sorry.”

“Don't apologize?” God, Nick can't process so many things all at once. “Come on, up, up.” Pulling them both to their feet is a feat in itself, but Nick manages to get them to the bathroom, making Louis sit down on the toilet lid.

“Does that happen often?” Nick thinks of Pixie and how some days she gets nose bleeds and some days she doesn't, just like that, no rhyme or reason, it goes off all by itself. So Nick isn't  a stranger to it, getting Louis a wet towel to clean up and then tipping his head forwards a bit, to help the gravity side of things, Pix says.

It's a bit worrying though, when Louis says, “No, never had any.”

At that, of course the only possible things to go through Nick's head are worse case scenarios, just one being Louis’ brain bleeding out through his nose. It's not a pretty picture, but then neither is Louis sitting on the toilet with a bloody towel pressed to his face.

“Right, you stay here, I'm going to call the doctor.”

Louis grabs his hand. “This is normal, Nicholas. Don't freak out about a tiny nosebleed.”

“That,” Nick points at Louis’ nose, “is not tiny. You're losing blood. Now let me get my phone.”

“It happens. It said so in those books of yours,” Louis smirks, like that's going to distract Nick at all.

“Those books are all shite, now let go of me.”

Louis does. With a frown and a roll of his eyes, but he does, so Nick can jog to the bedroom to grab Louis’ phone - it's another one of those things Nick doesn't remember happening, getting familiar with Louis’ old Nokia - and dials the number doctor Barnett gave them exactly for moments like this, of panic and uncertainty.

It does ring a few times, but then a lady answers, introduces herself as the on call nurse from the obstetrics department. Well, at least Nick got someone who will know what they're talking about.

It's not good. That's what Nick thinks when he hangs up the phone. He looks at Louis, who is still frowning up at him, his nose no longer dripping as it was. Nick sighs. He hates this.

“Well, the doctor said that a few nosebleeds during pregnancy are apparently normal,” Nick doesn't use air-quotes, but he wants to so very badly. Normal his arse. “As long as they stop in a few minutes and don't happen two days in a row, you should be fine.”

Louis smirks again. How he looks so fucking smug with a dirty stained towel in his lap, purple, blue and pink bubble patterned pyjamas from top to bottom, Nick will never know. “So what you’re saying, Nicholas is that I, Louis Tomlinson, was right.”

There are two ways Nick can handle this, but since it's nearly five in the morning, he's exhausted and it'll make Louis happy, he says, though not easily, “Yes. You were right.”

Nick doesn't hear the end of it for two weeks, but since Louis doesn't have another nosebleed, Nick will gladly take it.

He still likes to think of himself as a boulder after all.

/*/*/*/*/

There are not many more things that will fit in the house. Nick feels obligated to tell Louis that, but he's one hundred percent sure he would get slapped for it.

It's lovely, really, the miracle of life. It makes Louis go all soft when he's lying in bed after a shower, his pyjama top tucked up under his arms so his belly is out and proud and so big now, both of Nick's hands fit on top of it. Nick rubs lotion into Louis skin, massaging the belly gently, carefully, and Louis’ thighs, calves and feet with a bit more power, rubbing the achy cramps away with his fingers. Nick rubs Louis’ back and shoulders; he makes him food, whatever Louis wants for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And Nick loves it. Loves doing it for Louis just because it makes Nick feel useful, like he's contributing something to this pregnancy too, but also because of the look Louis gives him, all soft and thankful and Nick likes to imagine, a bit full of love too.

But just as Louis knows how to be kind, say thank you and kiss Nick all of his own volition, he can also be a mean bastard who lives for Nick's physical pain sometimes. It's the hormones, Nick knows, he does, but it doesn't make the arm swats and thigh pinches any less painful.

So Nick isn't going to ask Louis if they really need two playpens or two nappy bags, a store-sized stock of nappies or two of those weird half circle pillows. It's all on a need to know basis and besides Louis and Harry, no one else needs to know.

All Nick is in charge of on this shopping spree is carrying Louis’ water bottle around and fanning him off with the bills they're collecting like it's some kind of a sport. It's all still in their budget though, not that Nick knows how Louis is doing that. They've saved up, asked for gift cards for the baby shower Harry threw them last week. Nick is just tired. A bit.

It's taken so long and not long enough at all, actually, to get here.

Louis could give birth today and their baby Pink would be perfectly okay. Nick's asked the doctor that about six times just to make sure.

And that's another thing. They've still not got a name. It's between Olivia - Nick likes the thought of having an Olive - Daisy, because Nick refuses to let go of that golden opportunity, Violet, Louis suggested, since they're already on the topic of flowers, which of course brought Nick back to his good old Daffodil. There's always Anne if they want to make Harry cry his little heart out. Stella, Willow and Jamie all sound okay to both of them, but they've not yet picked one. Nick can already see how they'll call her baby girl for so long it'll stick and everyone will laugh at them. Eileen would throttle Nick.

However, as its custom for them at this point, they both have favourites picked out that they haven't told the other about. It's for the day, for when they finally see her. She might end up looking like a Theresa, for all Nick knows. Which, well, Theresa doesn't sound half bad come to think of it.

When they get back to their house - Nick's been calling it that in his head for a while now, but it's really feeling like it, more every day, like it's theirs. All of Louis’ things have a place somewhere, now their babies things are also there and Louis called it ‘home’ a few weeks ago. Nicks heart nearly jumped out of his chest - Harry kisses both of their cheeks and Nick swears his eyes are wet.

It feels like everyone around them, including Nick and Louis themselves, has been crying nonstop.

“Stop being soppy,” Nick mumbles, like he isn't going to wrap his arms around Louis as best as he can as soon as Harry leaves and not let go for a good hour. Everyone also tells them to enjoy the days they have to be alone together. Nick knows they're right, so that's exactly what he's been doing, with a surprisingly low amount of complains from Louis.

Harry sniffles. “He started it.”

And well, Louis does appear to be sniffling as well.

“I swear, the two of you are impossible to be around,” Nick says and heads off to the sofa. He wants a cuddle and if Harry doesn't leave soon, he'll just pull the dogs on his lap. That'll show Louis. “Come here Piggy, give us a kiss.”

Pig looks at him, snorts, and turns back to look out at the yard. Traitors, all of them.

After about five more minutes of Nick lying on the sofa, hugging a pillow to his chest, he hears the door open and close before Louis is walking towards him, sneakily wiping his thumb underneath his eyes.

“Come here,” Nick mumbles into the pillow. It's something he does so easily now, show affection to Louis and demand it right back, though, admittedly, Louis usually goes along with it. Right now, he comes to stand in front of Nick and frowns.

“I won't fit,” he gestures vaguely at the sofa as his other hands goes to pet his belly.

Actually, Nick hadn't thought of that. It had been a bit since they were spread in front of the telly together, usually opting for the bed and Netflix instead, because Louis is more comfortable there and no one holds it against Nick if he falls asleep in the first five minutes of whatever Louis wants to watch.

“Fine,” Nick says easily, tired as he is after a day spent walking around the baby shops. “Want to take a shower before he gets in?” The glass cubicle isn't too small for them both. And that's new as well. Nick's never liked showering with someone else before, having them watch him be all gangly, naked and awkward while he washed his hair, but for some reason, it's different with Louis, just like everything else seems to be with him.

Nick likes washing Louis’ back or hair or just standing underneath the water with him, having his hands on Louis’ skin. Nick's definitely become soppy himself.

But Louis shakes his head, offers Nick his hand and weirdly, takes Nick to the bedroom.

“What're you doing?”

“What?” Louis asks too slyly to not be planning something.

“Alright, we're just pretending like you're not leading me to the bed then, are we?” Nick says, sitting down on the edge of the bed when Louis stops them there.

Something is happening and it isn't until Louis smiles and takes his shirt off right in front of him with another of those quick, sharp smiles that Nick gets it.

Well, his prick surely does, the way it twitches at the sight of Louis’ skin. Sometimes Nick feels like an actual teenager around Louis, though that's been happening less and less lately, with Louis’ back pain and bloated body.

The last time Nick tried to get, well, intimate with him, Louis cursed Nick's dick off. It was a bit traumatic, Nick won't lie, but he gets it. Being pregnant has its downsides too.

Now, though, he's looking Nick up and down and saying, “Come on old man, get naked and fuck me.”

“Well, aren’t we demanding?” But Nick’s already taking off his clothes; one by one, watching and then helping Louis do the same when he wobbles just a little. It has to mean something, that Nick finds it cute, Louis’ hormonal and physical imbalance. Maybe now that Louis is climbing up his lap, gloriously naked, isn’t the time for appreciating that. “And impatient,” Nick adds when Louis rolls his hips down.

“I’m practically nine months pregnant,” Louis whispers as he looks at Nick, his eyes something fierce, “Horny and not in the mood Nicholas. So you better fuck me.”

Nick can almost hear the please Louis doesn’t say. A few months ago, it’d still be there, so Nick guesses that this really is Louis letting go of his inhibitions and just flat out begging for it. God, but if that doesn’t turn Nick on.

It’s no wonder, really, that in about five minutes, Nick has Louis lying on his side, as comfortable as he could get him, not that Louis didn’t half insist on wanting to be on top, but Nick drew the line. He doesn’t know what he’d do if Louis fell off him and to the floor mid thrust. Never forgive him, probably.

Louis’ already all slick and wet and stretched, practically just waiting for Nick to stop salivating over something as simple as the curve of Louis’ back. It’s just… Louis does have an exceptionally fit back, is all.

It’s the kind of sex they’ve never really had. The slow, careful kind where Nick is moving his hips deep, but easy, like they have all the time in the world, fingers grazing Louis’ skin as far as he can reach.

He twists Louis’ nipples, just quick pinches, and listens to him moan. Kisses and licks over Louis neck, his jaw, and waits to her the deep, raspy groan. Lifting Louis’ leg up a little, as Nick does, just to open Louis a bit more, but still being so careful to not do something wrong, because he’s got two people here he needs to take care of, he tries going a bit faster, a bit deeper, and there it is, Nick thinks as soon as Louis whines.

Nick tries to manoeuvre himself so that he’s got one hand wrapped tight around Louis’ cock, pulling him off, focusing just at the head until he feels Louis’ body go all tense, his eyes closed, teeth clenched and he’s coming over Nick’s hand, sticky and so fucking hot still. Nick’s never learned someone's body like this before, because he's not been with anyone long enough or seriously enough. Nick's never really wanted to, hasn't got the patience for relationships and everything they bring, like certain expectations and boundaries. Nick's just never wanted that, except for when it comes to Louis.

They’ve not been intimate in a bit, they’ve not had proper sex in even longer, but seeing Louis come like this, with Nick still moving inside him, barely just, before he comes too on a long satisfied, sated exhale, still bare because, well, too late now, isn’t it? Nick’s always liked waiting; he just didn’t know that weeks at a time will get him so riled up for it so quickly. He is thirty, after all.

And it’s funny, really, fucking hilarious, how Louis sighing contentedly and saying, “Fuck, I love you,” all in one big or not so big breath, makes Nick’s heart stop.

Just… stop. In its tracks, dead, fast. Whichever, all of the above, it’s just not beating any longer, because the first thing that pops into Nick’s head after hearing that, is, “Nope, too soon.”

Like it hasn’t been practically nine months of living with Louis and knowing damn well he loves him back, except Nick is panicky, always has been, and that word, the L one, it makes him fucking go like no other.

Nick’s not ready. Nick’s too young. Nick has so much of his life left, why would he settle down now?

Maybe because he’s a daughter on the way - he’s never thought of it like that, like a _daughter_ \- and a man in his bed who Nick hasn’t ran away from. As of yet. As of right now, because look at him, getting out of bed even when the ability to walk has nearly been fucked out of him, just to go hide somewhere Louis can’t reach.

Nick mumbles something, “Be right back,” or something like that, he’s pretty sure, but the fact he takes the dogs, his phone, keys, wallet and leaves in his goddamn slippers, probably gives him away.

Nick is running. To where, he isn’t sure yet, but it’s away from that L word. Well, both of them.

/*/*/*/*/

“I don’t think that,” Nick pouts. It’s been less than an hour that he's been at Aimee's and he wants to leave. Right now. She's mean, she's probably right and Nick doesn't like either of those things.

“You think you don’t deserve love, babes. It’s okay, but you’re going to have to get your head out of your arse pretty fucking soon if you want that boy of yours to stay.”

Louis wouldn’t leave. Except that Nick wouldn’t put his money on Louis staying. _Fuck_.

“How bad do you think I fucked this up?”

“Well,” Aimee leans back on her sofa, judgemental as anything. “Pretty good, I’d say.”

“Wow, thank you for that. I’m so happy we’re friends,” Nick scoffs, because he can’t stop being a little shit. It’s pathological, he swears.

“You better be,” Aimee doesn’t exactly threaten, but Nick can hear it somewhere between her words. Loud and clear. “Why,” she asks again, like she has about five times up until this point, “Did you run away, Nick?”

“I told you.” Nick crosses his arms over his chest. He won’t be made into an idiot. “Louis said that he loved me and I freaked out.”

That’s it really. _Fuck_. Nick is an idiot.

“You know what,” he stops Aimee right as she’s about to say something lovely as much as Nick knows her, “I’m just going to go back home to Louis, apologize and, well. Yeah.”

“You should, you know,” Aimee gives him a smile. “Just tell him. It won’t kill you.”

If only she knew, Nick thinks, getting the dogs.

His heart’s stopped once already, now it’s going to again when Nick tells Louis what he has to tell him. This might be that Nick feels exactly the same way. It’s whatever. Nick does too. He loves Louis too. It’s just, harder to say out loud for the first time and right to Louis’ face, no less. Nick should practice in the mirror first; make sure his face will be all nice and normal.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

_New Year's party_

Louis’ disappeared. That's the only reason why Nick can't find him, obviously, because he's basically sober now, seriously exhausted and Nick's always been good at hide and go seek. Louis is nowhere to be found though, not even on the patio or the little pantry closet thing Nick has off the side of the kitchen.

Which is why is extra surprising - Nick might pee a little - to find Louis Tomlinson, of all people, tucked into Nick’s bed, the light from his phone screen making his face look a bit greenish.

“What’re you doing?” Nick asks in a put upon casual way, because he’s casual, the king of casual, casual as a cucumber or whatever the saying is.

“I’m waiting for you to come to bed, already.”

Oh. _Oh_. Now that’s definitely something Nick could do. “Just so we’re clear and nothing awkward happens, I can take off my clothes before I get under there, yeah?”

Louis shrugs from his spot underneath the duvet. “It’d be weird if you didn’t,” he says and then when Nick just stares and frowns, Louis adds, “Since I’m naked already.”

And that… That is an image Nick apparently doesn’t need to fantasise about, because it’s real life finally. Fucking finally.

Nick gets naked in record time, chucking his clothes left and right, hearing Louis laugh, but less at him and more Nick’s obviously idiotic antics, but if it amuses Louis, Nick will do it again. He’d do anything, if he’s honest. Like crawl underneath the heavy duvet, take Louis’ phone away from him and put it on the night stand and then with another look at Louis, just too really make bloody sure this isn’t a dream, kiss Louis’ gasp right out of his mouth.

“God, I’ve wanted this,” Nick murmurs, thinking out loud as his hands roam the naked skin of Louis’ back, Nick’s wanted this for so long. Louis’ got such a tiny waist that rounds off nicely into perfect hips and then an ass carved by the angels themselves, and now it’s like heaven’s opening up to let Nick in for a visit.

Nick’s never been this captivated by someone else before, because usually, his mind wanders and he’s thinking of five different things while he’s getting off. It’s just hard to keep him captivated and occupied. Except, it seems, when there’s a Louis biting Nick’s lip and squirming against him and asking, “So are we going to do something or what?”

They do. Nick lies Louis down on his back, spreads his thighs so he can sit between then and just looks for a while. At Louis’ tiny pink nipples, his toned and tanned torso, his blue eyes looking back at Nick, the blush on his cheeks, he is hard and slightly leaking at the tip, pink and pretty cock. He’s beautiful, Nick thinks, so fucking beautiful Nick doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Come on, Nicholas, suck me off,” Louis says with a thrust of his hips. It’s decided then.

Nick does every single trick he knows of. He sucks just at the tip of Louis’ prick until he hears a raps of a, “Please.” Nick rubs his knuckles along Louis’ tight balls and then lower, pressing right up against his taint until Louis swears and shivers, actually bodily shivers against Nick’s mouth. Nick pulls out the last party trick just as he swallows Louis down, so his nose is pressed to the trimmed hair at the base of his cock. Nick relaxes his throat and he hears Louis whine, but when he swirls his tongue, pushes himself down as far as he can, Louis says a quick, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and he’s coming down Nick’s throat, hot and sticky and so very hot.

In the moment, Nick knows his wet dreams have nothing on the real thing, and he’s not even come himself yet. Nick is hard as a bloody rock, practically humping his bedspread as he lets Louis catch his breath. But its fine, Nick’s going to live.

“Are you staying the night?” He asks before he moves. Nick has something in mind, a treat for himself. If Louis stays, then Nick doesn’t need to come just yet. If he doesn’t, then Nick will hump any part of Louis that he can. Nick’s a simple man like that.

“Well, after that, I don’t think I’m going to be moving for a few hours.”

Again, Louis decides for Nick like the trooper that he is. So, wiping the back of his hand over his lips and grinning like a total and complete mad man - this whole thing’s mad, isn’t it - Nick climbs back up the bed so he’s lying next to Louis.

Louis’ so warm, sated, Nick thinks he hears Louis hum.

“What about you?” Louis asks after a moment of silence. “Don’t you want to… you know?”

Nick smiles to himself. He pulls the duvet over them both, manoeuvres around, so Louis has no choice but to press his back against Nick’s chest and says, “In the morning, if you wake me up before you leave.”

It’s more of a question, really, than a statement, and hoping against all hope, Nick waits for Louis to say something, anything - please let it be ‘yeah, sure’.

There’s a hum, a deep sigh and Louis wiggling his hips, in what has the be the pretence of getting himself comfortable. He’s finally settled when he says, “We’ll see.”

And well. That’s all Nick wants, isn’t it? Just a possibility.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

It’s been a day.

Louis isn’t answering Nick’s calls.

He doesn’t reply to his texts.

Louis doesn’t see Nick’s _WhatsApp_ either.

Harry texts him in the evening, just a simple _I’ve got him_. Not that it matters. Nick’s too sloshed on white wine by that point to even remember what Harry’s on about.

Nick might text back _you can keep him_.

He doesn’t mean it though. Not at all.

/*/*/*/*/

Louis shouldn’t be fucking about, is what Nick thinks.

What Nick thinks is that Louis is full fucking term and still not answering his phone, so the only logical option is that he’s giving birth all over Manchester, behind every dirty dumpster while calling out for Nick, except Nick isn't there, is he?

He's home, sitting on the sofa with the dogs at his feet at two in the morning, because he can't make his mind stay still long enough to sleep. Nick's even sobered up in the time he's spent sitting on the sofa, staring at the telly.

Harry doesn’t text again.

/*/*/*/*/

The next morning, Nick has, fucking _had_ enough of this.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

_New Year’s party_

The feeling is a bit off. Nick’s cheek isn’t as wet as it usually is when Pig wakes him with her slobbers and it’s not as noisy as Stinky manages to make every single breath he takes. It’s a bit warm, a little wet, actually, but in a pleasant way, if Nick’s have to say. Like a really, very pleasant way.

Nick opens his eyes before he starts fantasizing about his dogs, but when he does, he isn’t met with a snout and fur. It’s a bright eyed Louis, almost smiling at Nick before he ducks his head and bites at Nick’s chest again.

“Oi, that hurts.”

“I thought you told me to wake you up?” Louis raises one opinionated eyebrow. He does have a point, doesn’t he? And Nick is still hard, or maybe it’s again, god, who the fuck cares anyway. Louis looks so soft, his eyes a bit tired around the edges, relaxed.

Now’s the time Nick could offer to brush his teeth. Except he physically can’t make himself, so instead, he grabs Louis by his hips and rolls them around until he’s on top and Louis’ breath quickens just that little bit.

“I did,” Nick bumps his nose against Louis. Is he actually allowed to do this? Is Louis sure? “You want to…” Nick trails off, because he can’t make himself say the words out loud.

But Louis nods, says a quiet and sure, “Yeah, _fuck_ ,” sort of like he’s desperate for Nick to touch him, do something, maybe just lower his hips enough for their cocks to rub together a bit.

“Shit, Nick, let’s just get to it before I come or something,” Louis says seriously. But the fact that Nick can apparently make Louis come, just like that - or something - needs to be written down somewhere. Right fucking now.

So Nick gets Louis on his stomach instead, because he wants to see Louis’ arse, appreciate the curve of it, have the chance to sink his teeth into the flesh while he’s slicking up his fingers and then gripping one cheek in a tight grip.

“God, how you look,” Nick says right as he circles his thumb over Louis’ fluttering rim. A dark dusty pink, Nick can’t take his eyes off it as he pushes a finger past the tight, god, so thigh muscle.

Nick’s done this before. In general and specifically this, stretching someone around his bony, just long enough fingers, but he swears no one’s responded like Louis does right now, twisting his hips, pressing them back against Nick’s hand when he adds another and then a third finger, being careful and slow. Louis whines into the pillow, stiffens and then practically melts when Nick crooks his fingers up, and Nick is eating it up, watching him, waiting for the moment Louis says, “Fuck me, just, Nick,” like he does, all in one breath.

“Wait, let me-” he starts to say, not that he wants to, but Nick is a gentleman and not one to ask on the first night. Maybe some time down the road of a serious, monogamous relationship, sure, Nick would. Or he’d feel like he could. Not that he's the chance before.

Louis, though? He just does it, easy as anything. “I’m clean. You?”

Nick nods. Louis quirks an eyebrow.

“Just pull out,” Louis says and it’s like hearing the magic words straight from a genie or some shit like that, Nick can’t think at the moment, because he’s too busy pressing the head of his cock right against Louis’ rim until he starts to sink in and holy, _fuck_ , this is glorious.

He leans forward, catches his weight on his elbows, right next to Louis’ shoulders. “You’re so tight,” he whispers, can’t help him, because everything is so wet and hot and Nick can smell Louis - the sweat, the cologne, the deodorant, even a bit of Nick himself - when he presses his mouth to the side of his neck and everywhere else.

Nick tries to go slow, he does, but he can’t. Not that Louis’, “Harder,” makes any difference, because if Nick does put any more power into his thrusts, first the bed will collapse, then Nick will collapse and then he’ll die on top of Louis all blissed out and happy.

Not a bad way to end it all, Nick thinks faintly, right as Louis arches his back and his whole body goes tight as a string, trembling, gasping and moaning out something Nick can’t make out. What Nick does know is that he’s pushing himself and Louis through it, even as Nick knows how uncomfortable it is lying in your own spunk like Louis is right now; it’s just that he’s even tighter than before, like he’s clenching just to drive Nick crazy.

Nick would bet that he is, that little minx. Louis even chuckles from below him, which is just as good, Nick can finally fucking let go to and just, _shit_ , come already.

He doesn’t think about it, the faint memory of Louis telling him to pull out or the even fainter scoff he’d give if he saw himself, listening to him and doing it without even the slightest of, “Hey, no, let’s do this properly.”

Nothing’s ever quite felt like it though. Not coming inside Louis, trying to push himself deeper and deeper with each spasm that went through him. And not falling down next to Louis after, either. Just lying there and looking over for a moment, watching Louis looking right back at Nick, before they both moved closer, just a little, just enough so they could kiss again.

What Nick doesn’t remember is the moment at his front door. Louis’ mostly looking down at the floor, scuffing his trainer against the pavement and saying, “Call me, for next weekend,” with a shy little shrug.

He's adorable, Nick thinks, and Louis had let Nick have his way with him, had let Nick kiss him and he had kissed Nick back.

Standing there, thinking he's both lucky and that the New Year has had a magnificent start all things considered, better than any of the thirty Nick's lived through at least.

Nick's mind, busy as it is remembering the sight of a sprawled out, panting Louis, supplies that Louis’ said, “I’ll text you next weekend,” because that makes sense.

It's logical that Louis would text. It makes sense because Louis has to know that Nick would, he definitely would text and call and harass Harry some more of nothing else. So it'd be weird if Louis told Nick to call him. That would mean Louis definitely want to do this again, sort of like no questions asked, he'd say yes. That really doesn't make sense to Nick.

It's Nick's insecurities that messed everything up, the panic always lingering and waiting for something to go wrong.

Nick was sure Louis said he'd call.

That's why Nick waited. That's why he was disappointed when he didn't, why Nick thought 'of course Louis doesn't want to have another go, I'm just Nick’. It's all a bit pathetic, really.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

A whole entire day after Louis’ due to give birth, Nick marches over to Harry’s place - not Louis’, he doesn’t live with Harry anymore, whatever stupid thing Nick does that week, Nick's house is still Louis’ house - demanding answers.

Nick is standing there, physically shaking as he stares Harry down. “Where is he?” he demands. _Demands_. And then asks, “Is he alright?” with his voice all quiet and worried, “Is he okay? He hasn’t given birth, has he?”

Harry gives him a somewhat encouraging smile, but before he’s able to actually say anything, there’s a sharp, “What are you doing here?” that comes from the kitchen.

“What do you mean what am I doing here? I’m here for you, you buffoon of a man-child!” Nick is beside himself. He really is, not that he knows why. But he sure is. Nick is _so_ beside himself, that he doesn’t panic, doesn’t take a deep breath or anything, just looks at Louis and says, “Don’t ask me why but I love you and our baby and I miss you. I just don’t know how to say it, alright? I’m emotionally constipated, which shouldn’t be news to you.” Really, it shouldn’t.

Louis stomps his adorable small foot. “You can’t just come here and, and, and, declare your undying love for me, Nicholas!”

“Well,” Nick stands a bit straighter. He’d tip a hat if he had one on, “Why not?”

“Because Harry is right there, for one!”

And Harry is, right there, grinning like another buffoon of a man-child at Nick and Louis. God, how has it come to Nick loving one idiot, and being quite desperately in love with another idiot. Who should definitely not be screaming and getting his heart rate up, Nick thinks remotely. Stress, as much as Nick’s read, is not good for the baby. But it can’t be good for Louis either.

“Will you please come home with me?” Nick begs, he’s not ashamed to say he does. “Please?”

“Yes,” Louis huffs out. “But only if you’ll stop babying me and let me take a bloody shower by myself. I’m pregnant, not incapable of basic fucking tasks. And,” he points his finger right at Nick’s chest, “You better tell me you love me again when we get home.”

“We talked about cursing, Lou,” Harry adds in an actual coo to Louis.

“Shut up, Harold. She’s not even born yet.”

“But she can hear her dad cursing.”

“Just help he stand up.”

Nick, of course, does so immediately.

“I hope you know that he’s even worse than you.”

Nick smiles thankfully at Harry. He knew he would be. Nick also knows that Louis doesn’t mind being catered to one bit, at least not when everyone’s catering to his every wish. He does, however, recognize how someone being overbearing and hovering over his shoulder might not be as pleasant. Nick can _try_ to see that. He can also maybe tell Louis he loves him every day, just to start. For practice, like.

When they’re finally home again, in their small tiny house barely big enough for both of them, Nick lets Louis have his shower. That is, until Louis calls for him and Nick, suffering yet another heart attack, rushes in to find him sitting on the floor looking like a steaming pile of something Nick will not even think of as his pregnant boyfriend. But he does look it.

Wait. Are they? Boyfriends? Didn’t they _just_ tell the other they love them? Which comes first? Oh. Ha. Right.

“What’s happened? What’s wrong? Is it happening? Are you hurt?”

“Nicholas, calm down.”

“Right, right, I’m calm.” He is not. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Louis grumbles.

“Okay, great,” Nick says, trying not to vomit his racing heart on the bathroom floor.

“I just got tired.”

“So you… decided to have a bit of a sit down?”

“I did.”

“And now you can’t get up?”

“I can, of course I can. I’d just rather you helped me. Please,” Louis adds all quiet. His cheeks go a bit pink and Nick’s a bit more in love.

He’s just stupid for not realizing the feeling in his chest, the warm, soft, fluttery thing? Yeah, that was love all along. Brilliant. Not that Nick didn't know. It's just different, isn't it? Knowing it or saying it out loud to Louis.

“Would you rather I drew you a bath?”

“Nick…”

“We could, I mean, I could come in with you?”

They’ve been home for a couple hours already. First, on the drive over, Louis had been suspiciously quiet, humming along to some songs, but mostly keeping mum while Nick tried, at first, to chit-chat, because that’s what he does when he’s nervous. Nick talks. Well, he did, until Louis told him too politely, “Shut up, Grimshaw, we’ll talk when we get home.” When they finally came home, the dogs whirled around their feet for a hot minute, but as neither of them whipped a sausage out of their pockets, they scampered off, probably to bed, since they do like their sleep just like their owner. Or maybe it’s owners now. Nick hopes, at least.

With that thought on his mind, he had asked, tentatively, “Can we talk now?”

Louis huffed over to the sofa and sat down as he has to now that their baby girl Pink has gotten so big, making his moves awkward and slow. Louis hasn’t much complained, beyond having an achy back. It was actually a problem for Nick, figuring how he was going to stop Louis from moving so much. He’s still not got any ideas and Louis was due yesterday.

“Yes, we can walk,” Louis had said calmly and as collected as Nick’s ever seen him. “Go on, make your case.”

Nick rolled his eyes, he did, it’s not like Louis Tomlinson terrifies the bloody shit out of him.

“So” Very good start there, solid. But then, Nick thought why not just tell the truth? Aimee knows, Pix and Alexa know him well enough to have been able to see this coming and hell; Harry didn’t seem surprised, more like he was waiting for Nick to make Louis flee sooner or later.

Because Nick’s never been a gambler, he goes all in, not knowing the capacity of what he has to lose, or knowing, but risking it all because he win could be so much greater. “I love you.” Taking a breath, Nick said, “I love you,” again, trying to sound a bit less constipated with it. It’s just fucking weird to say out loud is all, with Louis watching him with those sharp blue eyes of his. “I know I panicked and I’m sorry I ran.”

“You ran away,” Louis said then, quiet and angry, if Nick knows anything about him. “You said you wouldn't run away.”

Which is true, Nick did say that. But, Nick had no idea how to make it sound like something a rational human being would do in his shoes. There’s no way out of this without making he look crazy.

“I didn’t run away from you,” Nick started at first, “It was the feelings. They make me uncomfortable.”

Louis rolled his eyes then and Nick realized how infuriating that is.

“No, listen. I’ve never been in a serious relationship. Never been in a proper relationship, even. Like, some blokes were fun to hang around with, and I wanted a handful of them to lead to something more at first, but two weeks in and I was bored out of my mind.” Louis’ confused, disbelieving wide eyes didn’t make him feel any better about himself. Nick knows how he sounded. “So it’s weird, alright? That I still want you here and that I love you and that you love me back. I’m not really used to this. I didn’t know what to do.”

“So you ran?” Louis enunciated slowly, like Nick was particularly thick.

“It’s what I do,” he shrugged and looked down at his lap. Nick’s not proud of it, but he can’t do much about it.

“How about next time, you go take a breather on the patio instead? And then maybe we could, oh, I don’t know, have a conversation about it?”

Nick stopped listening after ‘next time’. Hope swelled in his chest, because of course it did.

“Next time?”

“Well, I mean…”

And at the look on Louis’ face, all twisted up worry, Nick started nodding his head, “Yes, yeah, definitely, let’s do that next time,” so his hair flopped onto his forehead. He didn’t know what part of it did it, but Louis laughed at him, quiet and exasperated, just like Nick loved.

So Nick stands in the bathroom, looking down at Louis on the shower floor, wondering how he even got down there, and says, “Rub your shoulders a bit?”

Nick does. Happily. They have a lovely bath with Louis resting against Nick’s chest and Nick doesn’t complain once. Not even Louis. Not until they’re all wrinkled and he wants to stay in the nice, warm, comfy water even when Nick’s hauling him back out.

/*/*/*/*/

It’s the middle of the night when it happens. Because of course it is.

It’s not Louis that wakes Nick up. No, it’s dreaming of being a mermaid and a whale trying to tell him something, something important, but Nick can’t understand it - he doesn’t speak whale. When he opens his eyes in a fury of, ‘I don’t understand’, it’s to Pig licking his face, whining and shaking, trying to burrow into his shoulder while also trying to jump over him.

As he blinks again, Nick hears another huff and wail coming from beside him. It doesn’t feel like a heart attack, even though Nick is sure he’s supposed to feel like dying right about now.

Louis is curled on his side, clutching the pillow with white fingers, biting his lip.

“It’s, it’s happening, it’s fucking happening, isn’t it?”

“Nicholas Grimshaw, you better not fucking panic,” Louis pants and then squeezes his eyes shut. Nick can't stand the look of pain on his face.

“I’m not, I’m not,” Nick panics. He does.

But he also helps to carefully roll Louis to his other side and gentles him off the bed. Half carrying him to the car and grabbing the bag they’ve packed about a month ago, just in case, Nick does the slowest race interpretation of a car ride to the hospital. Nick can’t believe it, but he even manages to send Aimee a text that just says, ‘Dogs’ while also telling Louis to breathe.

Louis only punches his shoulder twice on the way.

It all goes so smoothly from the moment Nick had woken up to when they get Louis on the wheelchair and away behind the doors Nick can’t pass, because they’ve both agreed that the operating room is no place for Nick to be, that it’s no surprise the actual, real, heart wrenching panic that has Nick smiling as he cries into his hands, starts when he can’t see Louis anymore.

It’s no fucking surprise he’s all alone either. He didn’t tell Harry, and Aimee can’t come to hospital because she’s taking care of Pig and Stinky. For the time being, Nick forgets he has other friends and family he could call, so he sits and contemplates ever loving someone else as much as he does Louis and their baby girl Pink. After about thirty minutes, he’s come up with nothing.

And the thing is, in the end, that it feels like he’s been sitting in the god awful uncomfortable bright orange plastic chair for five hours, not knowing what to do or what he’d do without Louis, feeling like he’s bursting with love and loneliness at the same time, when it’s only been a good forty minutes when a nurse in more muted orange scrubs comes through the door Louis’ disappeared behind, asking, “Tomlinson?”

Nick doesn't even correct her.

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

/*/*/*/*/

Nick is standing in front of his house.

He watches as the lights he’s just twisted around the few bushes he manages to upkeep and the windows on the inside go from dead and not much, to suddenly alive, blinking and as bright blue as Nick could find on such short notice. That’s mainly the reason why the kitchen window is now doused in white fairy lights, but no one can say Nick didn’t do his best.

It’s wonderful, really, going out to the shop after a whole week passes of being cupped up in the house with a sick boyfriend who then calls you five minutes later to double check you’ve got the shopping list on you. Nick didn’t but that’s an argument for another day.

It’s wonderful to have someone call him, to have someone who cares. And god, Nick does. It’s become a bit of a joke, actually, that every time Nick goes out, Louis asks, “Will you be coming back or should I send Harry after you?” or switches it up and says, “Remember to not go outside in your slippers.” _Ha,_ so funny, Nick doesn't know how to deal with life-changing emotions, _ha_ fucking _ha._

Nick would never leave and Louis damn well knows it. They still laugh though, because it’s their little private thing between them.

The front door opens and then there’s Louis, saying, “Can you please not freeze to death? Your mother would throttle you if you did,” before he’s gone again, along with their little baby girl cradled on his chest.

Nick, still not being able to resist himself, jogs up to the house and gets in with a shiver, looking where Louis’ disappeared off to, because it’s his turn with the baby.

“Lou?”

“In here, honey,” Eileen calls and Nick goes, smiling like he usually does right before he’s about to take his daughter out of Louis’ arms and have a cuddle with her. He’s not told Louis yet, but she wins as the cuddle master.

“Where’s my daughter?” Nick demands, _demands_ , but Louis’ already coming towards him, handing her over as carefully as they always do. It’s still a bit unnerving - Nick still gets up in the middle of the night just to look at her sleep while Louis checks her breathing. Yes, they’re paranoid, but no one thought they wouldn’t be, did they?

Holding her close to his chest, Nick starts off towards the living room when Eileen says, “Why don’t you two have a lie down for a bit, while I finish things up in here,” and it’s a testament of how little sleep they’ve been getting in these three months - to the day - that Louis says, “Thanks,” and follows after Nick.

It’s the twenty-fourth of December, Joy’s third months birthday - Nick thought those month by months were stupid, but they aren’t, he can admit he was wrong - Christmas Eve and Louis’ birthday. A busy day, all in all, and Nick and Louis have managed to make it even busier by inviting Louis’ and Nick’s families over for Christmas dinner. Again, not something Nick thought he’d be planning, ever, if he’s honest.

Now though, he sits down carefully on the sofa, leaves enough room at his side for Louis, and once they’re shoulder to shoulder, he relaxes, holding little Joy tight to his chest.

“Was she good in the morning?” Louis asks, blinking slowly, drowsily. They’re both exhausted to their bones.

“Fussed a bit, but not too much, did you? Only when Pig knocked over her food bowl. You didn't like that, did you?” The dogs have been better than Nick had hoped. He doesn’t want to think what he’d do if they didn’t take to having Joy around. Build them a whole separate house, if he knows himself.

“Great,” Louis sighs, leaning his head on Nick’s shoulder a bit, “Because she was seriously awful at night. Wouldn’t eat anything and she kept making this face, like, but her nappy was clean.”

Ah, Nick thinks, good old poo talk with his significant other. Good times. It’s just what life is now: poo colour, poo frequency and the lack of poo.

“She just knew it was your birthday and wanted to keep you company,” Nick coos down at her.

She has Louis’ eyes already. Nick knows they say it could change, that she could end up with Nick’s green brown mix or something else entirely, but she won’t, Nick can just tell. Besides, she’s going to have curly brown hair, after Nick or after Harry, depending on who you ask. Harry doesn’t get how the logistics of that confuse people to no end.

“She wanted something, that’s true,” Louis grumbles, but then he takes Joy’s foot in his hand and holds her there, because it’s hard being away from her for even more than a moment. It’s a bit like a part of Nick is missing when he does. He’s no idea how long the feeling will last, but he’s in no hurry to get rid of it for once. Joy will probably be the one who’ll want to get away from them sooner or later.

Good luck, Nick thinks and nearly laughs.

“I can ask mum to give us the afternoon. She’ll be here, reading a book or something while this one sleeps,” Nick suggests carefully, because Louis’ shown no interest in being away from Joy at all, not even a moment. He’s adorably possessive like that.

Louis sighs, leans up to kiss Nick’s temple. “We’d just sleep in a different room.”

“Come on, it’ll be good. Two hours tops, just to get some proper rest.”

It’s working a bit, Nick knows by how Louis’ face softens and the fact he squeezes Joy’s foot a bit.

They’ve settled on a name a few hours after she was born.

Louis had her in his arms, all cuddled up and wrapped in a thick blanket with the tiny hat on that they’ve brought with them - the pink one with the tiny red hearts all over - when Louis said his name was Joy, a bit because of his mum, a bit because that’s what she’s brought him and a bit because he thinks it’s going to be like that, his life from now on, since he has her and Nick. Just _joy_.

Nick didn’t want to say his name was Patrice; a bit for Pete, and because Nick thought it’d be neat, having someone to call ‘Pat’ now that ‘Pete’ was gone. He didn’t, because his eyes got all wet and his nose bunged up, making him wheeze with his next breath like the asthmatic Nick is when Louis told him. _Joy_ Nick thought, and cried his eyes out.

They were both big giant messes for a few days after that, of tissues and diapers and trying to keep Joy from crying too much, all while watching her sleep with the kind of peaceful fascination Nick's never felt before. It's becoming less strange, looking at her and thinking, _that's my daughter right there_

Besides, that first night back in their bed, with Joy in the crib at the foot of the bed, as the dog’s plusher plush was moved temporarily to the living room for everyone’s sake, Louis had whispered, _maybe next time, you can pick out the name._

And Nick, well, he laughed, because maybe he could picture himself with seven kids after all.

Now though, Louis sighs like he’s only doing this for Nick and isn’t exhausted enough to fall asleep standing up. “Fine. Two hours.”

Nick smiles as he leans down to kiss him. It’s still weird being able to do that though, just kiss Louis whenever he feels like it. It’s the best, really.

“Come on; let’s have a bit of a lie down now too, moved up.”

They rearrange themselves so that Nick is on his back, Louis wrapped around his side and Joy is on Nick, her round, squishy cheek pressed against his chest and her tiny, little hand squeezing Louis’ finger.

Nick kisses the top of Louis’ head again, then Joy's, and thinks it’s a bit like a dream, all this. Except Nick’s pretty damn sure he’s in his own house now and he’s not got sausages for fingers.

Besides, Nick couldn’t make this up in his wildest dreams.


End file.
